This one is...a bit of an emotional mess. I can't seem to write angst without humour, or vice versa. It's much longer (over twice as long), though, and I hope it's still enjoyable!

Let me know what you think, and thank you for showing interest in Chapter 6 of POV!

Dick didn't mention anything about the disastrous conversation from the mountain for days afterwards, and Wally didn't dare bring it up. Still, their relationship was tense, and the both of them knew that it wouldn't be too easy to ignore what words had been said and what had occurred. Wally, for his part, still wanted Barry to know that he was around, but for what he was unsure.

Did he still want Barry to feel guilty about abandoning him? But with all that time to mull over his thoughts, Wally didn't necessarily think that Barry had actually abandoned him anymore. Barry went to his nephew's grave once, but maybe Wally was just disappointed because he had been expecting more. He honestly didn't want Barry to cry or be upset. He never did. Yet, he wanted Barry to cry and be upset for him, because Wally would have done the same in return.

Maybe Dick was right. Maybe Barry really was just honouring Wally's memory, not wanting to be sad for the teenager's sake. And, in a way, Wally knew that it was for the best. He might have been in more pain seeing Barry mourn over and over again, slip into a depression, for the boy that was right there.

It took a few days of thinking for Wally to realise, no matter how much Wally didn't want his favourite person in the world to be depressed, why he longed for the recognition of sadness at Wally's death.

Barry's happiness made it seem as if Wally had never made an effect on Barry's life. Being an actual ghost was a nightmare, but knowing that he had been a ghost for as long as he had lived? That was unbearable.

And selfish. Wally felt insanely selfish. How could he ever have thought that way of his uncle? How much pain was that man really in? And Wally couldn't do anything to heal that pain. He could do nothing but stand and watch the man go about his life, believing that Wally really was gone, not knowing that Wally still was with him.

Amidst all his thoughts of Barry, Wally discovered an important function in being a ghost. Because he had no superspeed, he could never go places very fast. In fact, finding Dick from Barry's house was only because he had followed Barry to the Watchtower, followed Batman to the Batcave, and finally followed Dick to school. However, if he thought about the place that he wanted to go hard enough, if he had enough longing to go there, sometimes he actually did. The first time it had happened, Wally had freaked Dick out by disappearing in the middle of the acrobat's rant about the American education system, but it was a pretty neat trick once he got the hang of it. At least being a ghost had some benefits.

He used the skill to switch back and forth between Barry and Dick's presences. He wanted to tell himself that he stayed with Dick most of the time, despite the often tense atmosphere, but he would be lying. He felt something obligatory in watching Barry. As if it were something that he were meant to do. Though he was mostly with Dick during the daytime, when Dick got the brief amounts of sleep that he did, Wally wasted no time in switching over to the Allen household.

Sometimes, all that happened was Wally watching Barry sleep. Other times, Barry was staying late in the forensics labs at the CCPD, ripping himself apart over some evidence that he couldn't sort out. Those times were especially excruciating, because while Barry was too tired to pick up on all the fine details, Wally could easily see what he was missing to solve a case and was unable to let the man know. Other nights, it was neither of those instances. Barry would be half asleep and half awake. He would lie in bed, Iris snoring softly beside him, with his eyes bloodshot and trained on the ceiling.

Wally had no way of knowing what events had occurred during the day for Barry to look such a way. He had been busy at Wayne manor. But on those nights, like the one that was happening at that moment, Barry would lazily toss the sheets to the side and stumble to the bathroom. Wally had enough decency to wait outside the door and, though he'd try not to listen because listening to someone go to the bathroom was plain awkward, he would hear Barry sigh. Barry would turn on the faucet, splash what was probably his face, turn it off, turn it on again, turn it off, and then there would be silence. If the man was in there for over an hour, Wally would tentatively inch his way through the door, only to find Barry with his arms around his knees and sitting against the bathtub, fast asleep.

Wally would be there with him until Aunt Iris knocked on the door at sunrise and woke Barry up. She seemed to guess every time that the man had been in there for a while, but she never said anything. She only walked downstairs and called the department, letting them know that Barry would be late for work.

When Wally appeared back in Dick's bedroom, the acrobat was changing. Wally was grateful for the fact that Dick seemed to wear leggings (or something like that - spandex? Man-dex?) beneath everything, so seeing his friend half shirtless wasn't really a problem. Dick adjusted his collar and pulled on his blazer without looking at the ghost. "So, where do you keep disappearing off to?" he asked conversationally, sitting down on his bed to pull on his socks.

Wally didn't think there was any point in denying the truth. Where else would he go? "Home," he answered. Dick nodded, pulling on his socks and moving in front of the mirror to adjust his tie. Wally wrinkled his nose. It must have been a pain in the ass to wear a tie every day, especially for someone who grew up in a circus where he had probably been 50% naked 90% of the time. Dick squirted some hair gel onto his hands and rubbed it over his fingers absentmindedly.

Then, with a dramatic sweep of his fingers through his bangs, he spun around and gave a nervous, albeit attempting to be brilliant, smile. "I want go with you," he declared.

"I usually go while Barry's sleeping," Wally deadpanned. Not to rain on Dick's parade, but he didn't think anyone would appreciate the Boy Wonder watching them sleep.

Dick rolled his eyes and dragged the rest of the gel through his hair. His smile grew less nervous at Wally's apparently amusing response. "No, smartass. I mean I'll go with you to your house after school."

Wally's eyes widened thoughtfully. "Think Batsy'll let you?" he asked.

Dick snorted. "No, but when'd that ever stop me? He hasn't been paying attention to where I go lately, anyway. Al says he's just giving me space, but I really just think that he doesn't know how to apologise and went back into hibernation."

"Bats hibernate?" asked Wally. Dick only shrugged and glanced at the time, before proceeding to scramble his things into his backpack.

"Besides," Dick said as he shoved his binder into his bag and zipped it up, slinging the hefty thing onto his back. "I kind of...owe it to you." Wally didn't say anything, urging Dick on. "I mean, I sort of blew up on you the other day and it wasn't really any of my business. And...I guess it could work? It's not like Batman has a file on ghost properties, but we'll never know if we don't try."

When Dick glanced up at him, it was to Wally's grin, and it felt as if the room finally released the breath that it had been holding for the past week. "See? This is why you're my best pal."

Wally was more than happy to be the reason that Dick practically skipped into the car that morning under Alfred's startled eye.

The nerves kicked in when Wally and Dick found that there was no one home. There was a reasonable explanation: Iris was a reporter with unspecified hours and Barry was still at the lab. The nerves weren't for not knowing where his guardians were, however. The nerves were for the realisation that what they were about to do could either end spectacularly well, or spectacularly bad.

"Hi," Dick said kindly to the front desk of the Central City Police Department. He had his sunglasses on and had changed in the alleyway of the Central-Gotham zeta tube, trading out his private school uniform for a green hoodie and black sweatpants. He had made sure to shake his hair out from its gelled back look to give himself easy recognisability for Barry, too. With the amount of identities that Dick had, Wally wouldn't be surprised if the smallest change caused him to be unrecognisable. The woman behind the front desk looked up lazily, her eyes scanning with semi-interest over Dick's appearance. His windswept hair and baggy clothes made him look like any apathetic teenager, but the glasses must have passed him off for more of the rebellious side. Honestly, Wally was only thankful that it was sunny outside so that Dick actually had an excuse to be wearing them.

"Hello," she said, propping her elbows on the desk. "How may I help you?"

"I'm here to see Barry. Barry Allen," said Dick as the secretary glanced over to her computer screen and began to type in the name. "Barry. B-A-R-R-Y. Allen. A-L-L-E-N."

"Forensics?" the secretary asked suspiciously. "I thought you were talking about someone in interrogation. Is Mr. Allen your father?"

"Not exactly," Dick said. "Could you please let him know that Rob is here to see him?"

The woman held his gaze for a moment before writing down the name on a sticky note. "Alright, son. Just sit over there. Don't expect him to be out immediately, though."

"Thank you," replied Dick as he went to sit in one of the chairs in front of the main door.

Wally couldn't stand still. He buzzed around constantly, pacing right in front of Dick's nose as the boy sat absolutely still, probably trying to block Wally's actions from his mind. It didn't seem to be working, but Wally mentally cheered at the fact that Dick couldn't exactly complain when no one else would have been able to see what he was complaining about.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for Barry to appear. In fact, Wally would have bet that it took two minutes tops for the man to go skidding around the corner, arriving at a screeching stop in front of Dick. The waiting room stared, but Barry gave them no mind. "Rob!" the man exclaimed. Dick got up and laughed as Barry gave him a hug. Wally would never admit that he burned with jealousy, and his gut dropped painfully. He really did miss getting hugs from anyone, let alone from the Flash, his mentor and partner and uncle. "What'cha doing here, kiddo?"

"I actually need to talk to you about something," Dick chuckled nervously. He made a point to quickly glance about the room, too quick for normal eyes to promptly catch, but definitely slow enough for the Flash. Barry sobered up quickly, nodding, though he didn't hide his confusion.

"Well, you're right on time. I was just about to head out for the day. Want to walk with me for a second? I just need to grab my things and we'll be out of here in no time," the man said.

Dick agreed and the two of them began walking down the hall, Dick with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his eyes trained on the ground, most likely to ignore the way that Wally dragged himself between them. Wally ached for Barry to just go faster. Get outside. It would only take a few minutes for Dick to tell Barry about Wally's existence, right? Then Barry would be able to see him and everything would be okay.

Right?

"So, how's your dad been doing?" Barry asked as they turned into the lab. Dick hesitated for a split second while Wally strode in, until Barry reassured him that he was fine to be in there as long as he stuck by the speedster.

"He's been okay," Dick answered absentmindedly. Wally knew that Barry had said 'dad' because anything specific would have been too much of an indicator as to Dick's identity, either as Robin or as Dick Grayson, but Wally couldn't help but want to correct his mentor himself. Probably because Dick had done it so much to Wally that he couldn't help it.

"Did you ever get to know why he was looking for you?" pressed the hero.

"Uh, yeah. Just something that happened at home. No biggy," reassured Dick, though by the look on Barry's face, the answer wasn't very comforting.

"So you're not here about any of that?"

"Nope."

At least Barry could take a hint, and they were silent as Barry picked up his jacket and began to organise the files and slides on his desk, picking up a few papers and sealing them into a folder that he put into a drawer.

"Wait," Wally said loudly, though only Dick paused in his actions. "That file. The one on his desk, right there," the redhead said, pointing to the file in question that lay beside Barry's microscope. "Tell him that the numbers are messages." At least Wally would be able to help Barry get more sleep. Working too much was definitely unhealthy.

"What?" Dick hissed, confused.

"Just do it," pleaded Wally.

"Uh," said Dick loudly, prompting Barry's attention as the man stopping in his rifling. "The-"

"Willmorth Case," Wally said.

"-Willmorth Case," Dick continued in a lower voice, causing Barry to frown. "The numbers in the file. They're messages."

"What?" Barry exclaimed after a moment, flipping open the folder and staring at the report. "You mean the numbers painted on the walls of the robbed houses? How did you know that?"

Dick only gave him a raised eyebrow, and Barry didn't pursue Dick's knowledge of the information any further. "Why didn't you tell the detectives? I'm just supposed to collect the evidence, not piece it together."

Dick shrugged. "They would have questioned me more than you," he responded.

There was a moment where Barry slowly flipped through the pictures in the stabled papers, before he gave a great smile that had Dick blinking back puzzlement. "Yes!" he cheered in success, grabbing the papers and glancing up to a man in a badge on the other side of the room, speaking to a different forensics personnel in a white lab jacket. The man wasted no time in ditching Dick and racing over to the uniform.

"What was that for?" Dick mumbled, pretending to be occupied with his phone.

"He's been killing himself over that case for a few nights now. He always wants to crack the hard cases, especially the parts that don't have anything to do with forensics," elaborated Wally.

Dick smiled at that, though Wally didn't really know why. Barry was back in no time with an avid expression and a pat on Dick's shoulder. Wally was relieved to practically feel the change in Barry's posture, as if something large and burdening had been lifted from his back. "Thanks, Kid," he said.

Dick's eyebrows furrowed at the nickname and, that time, Wally knew why. The redhead had normally been the one to help Barry on cases, after all. Even if unintentionally, he felt a rush of pride seep through him, the same pride that surfaced when Flash congratulated him on a job well done. It were almost as if Barry were talking to him instead of Dick. "I hate being a medium," Dick muttered. Barry didn't hear him.

Barry looked as if he were bursting with questions by the time the two (three) of them stepped onto the sidewalk outside of the CCPD. "Okay, spill," he promptly demanded. Dick sighed.

"Not here."

Without waiting for a protest, Barry took Dick by the arm and rounded the corner into an alleyway. Wally groaned as the two disappeared in a flash of light.

Well, whatever. Barry may have had superspeed, but Wally had teleportation.

Wally appeared in front of the living room couch, his knee just barely through the coffee table, right as Barry unlocked the front door. Dick looked past the man to blink in surprise at Wally's presence, but otherwise made no comment as Barry kicked the door closed. Barry turned to look at Dick expectantly.

"Relax, it's not bad news," Dick said. Barry sighed in relief and slumped as he made his way to the kitchen.

"I hope not. I could use a lot less of that," he mumbled, and Wally felt guilty for having died. Out of all emotions concerning his death, Wally had never thought that one of them would be guilt. "Do you want anything? Cookies? Water? Waffles?"

"Interesting assortment," quipped Dick. "But I'm good. Thanks."

Barry shrugged and grabbed a few cookies from the counter. He was almost done with the first one by the time he had crossed the kitchen and living room to sit beside Dick on the couch. Wally stood in front of them, on the opposite side of the coffee table, with his hands on his hips. He felt sort of bad for staring so intensely at Dick considering that Barry was doing the same, but there was really nowhere else worth looking with what was about to happen.

"This is going to sound insane. Just hear me out, alright? I'm not crazy," said Dick, and Wally couldn't help but remark that he pleaded sanity despite what he had said during their earlier argument at the mountain. It brought that argument to mind and he almost missed what Dick asked next. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"What?" was Barry's hesitant answer. He munched slower through his second cookie and set the rest on the table. Dick waited for the man to swallow. "Uh, not really? You're going to find very few scientists who believe in the supernatural, bud."

"You're a guy with superspeed who fights crime alongside a bunch of aliens and you don't believe in ghosts?" Dick retorted.

"But all of that can be explained with science," Barry pointed out. "Ghosts...can't."

"They better be, or else you're going to question everything you've built your life on," muttered Dick. That time, Barry heard him.

"Seriously, Robin. What are you going on about?" demanded the man, a frown having inched its way onto his face. Dick took a moment to stare at the new expression, and Wally figured that his best friend hadn't seen Barry without his smile very often.

"Hurry up," Wally urged. Dick shot him a glare.

"This is harder than it looks," he told Wally. Barry whipped his head to look at Wally but, seeing nothing, only increased his frown.

Before Barry could say more, Dick took a deep breath. "Wally's a ghost. And I can see him. And he's in this room."

It really couldn't have gone much more awkwardly than it did. Wally stood there, expectant and hopeful, darting glances at Dick who looked like he wanted nothing more than to crawl six feet underground and stay there. Wally didn't blame his best friend. The way that Barry was staring at him made Wally feel crazy, too. If the redhead didn't keep accidentally walking through the coffee table in anticipation, he might have doubted his own existence as a ghost.

"Did you go on patrol with Batman last night?" was the first thing that Barry asked.

Dick narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Barry reached for his communicator. "I think you need to get to the Batcave. You were probably sprayed with fear gas. I heard some rumours about what happened last time. That stuff is nasty-"

"No!" Dick exclaimed, grasping Barry's slowly crawling wrist. The speedster stopped and looked at the young teenager in concern, which only caused Dick to bristle. "I'm fine. Trust me, I'd know if I got infected with fear gas, and I've been able to see Wally for weeks now. He's been asking me to tell you, but I knew you'd just think I'm insane." He set his jaw and purposely prevented his eyes from straying towards Wally, but his words were clear enough.

"If I'm such an inconvenience, why'd you help me?" Wally countered. Dick didn't answer, but his grip on Barry's wrist tightened.

"Richard, you need help," Barry insisted, yanking his hand away from the younger boy's grasp. "Are you telling me that the reason you've been all happy is because you think you've been speaking with...with Wally?" The man stuttered at the name, and Wally winced.

"I don't think I have, I know I have," snapped Dick. Barry abruptly stood up, causing Wally to stumble back a step. The one thing that would probably crush his memory of Barry forever would be if he accidentally went through the man. He had to maintain a sense of normalcy somehow, after all.

"Kiddo, if you could always see Wally, why not before? You were depressed," the speedster continued cautiously. "Have you ever thought that maybe you're just...seeing him to get over your depression? A mechanism of your mind to deal with grief? A trick?"

"I live in Gotham!" Dick exclaimed in frustration. "I've dealt with enough crazies and illusions and depression and grief and insane inmates to know that I'm not one of them!"

"Has Batman taken you to see a therapist?"

"Yes! I've been seeing a therapist ever since Wally's death, without fail. Stop trying to discredit me and just listen for a second!"

"Dick, things like this have happened before. Has he said anything unlike how he...used to be? Look, I know you don't create illusions on purpose. It's just a-"

"Wally's standing right behind you, listening to everything you're saying. If you think you can trick me into thinking that Wally's not real, try tricking Wally into thinking that he's not real. See how far you get with that."

"God, stop mentioning him!" Barry finally shouted, causing Dick's prepared response to die on his lips. Barry fell back onto the couch defeated, palms pressed against his forehead. Wally hurt. From where, he didn't know. He had no chest and he had no heart, but he had a soul and he had feeling and all he knew was that it hurt. Barry's words hurt. "He's gone. Jesus, Dick, he's gone and he's always going to be gone! We can't ever get him back. He's not a ghost, he's not alive, he's not here. No matter what we want ourselves to believe."

There was silence as Barry stared at his toes. Dick wasted no time in lifting his own head to stare helplessly at Wally, who could only bite his fingers and squeeze his eyes shut. What could he, as a transparent spirit, possibly do to convince Barry that he was real?

What did they do in the movies?

"Tell him...," the redhead began as Dick looked on quizzically. "Tell him that I remember when Barry came to my house a couple years ago. I was still living with my dad. My dad answered the door and Barry was angry about something, but I don't know what and I still don't know what."

Dick nodded and began repeating the tale. After a moment, Wally went on. "Barry came in and slammed his fists on the counter, ranting, while I was watching from behind the bars of the stairs. I had been about to go down and get food, but I was nervous because at that point people were actually talking down there and I wasn't used to loud noises.

"Barry wanted some food and my dad told him to get whatever he wanted. My dad went back to the couch as he began pulling the weirdest pieces of food from the fridge because we've always had a bunch of random snacks but never full, actual meals. Unless they were microwaveable. And then Barry walked into the living room and started ranting about how bad of a mess it was and that my aunt was going to be over later and they should at least try to clean it up. He said it looked like my dad lived in a dump, and I remember that especially because I'd always thought that it had looked normal. After a while, I remember going back upstairs to wait until everyone left, but an hour later I inched back down because I had heard yelling and screaming.

"Barry had found something in the bathroom. It was heroin, but I didn't know that at the time, I just knew that it was my dad's private things that I wasn't allowed to go near and that's why I was never allowed to go into that bathroom. And Barry shouted for a minute and then went silent and concerned and cautious and then finally, finally, he had asked about me.

"I had never really talked to Barry before then. At first, he tried to be friends with me, but when I tried to make friends with him my dad always looked like he disapproved and I never wanted to disapprove my dad. I mean, my dad never touched me or anything, but that was kind of the problem. He never acknowledged me at all. Barry did, which was why I got so attached to him, but I thought it obligatory that I should care about my dad more than Barry, so I hid from Barry until Barry eventually figured that I just didn't like him and left me alone.

"That was years before then. I never talked or even let Barry look at me until then, but when he asked about me is when I got so surprised that I missed a step on the stairs and stumbled. I didn't fall all the way down, but I made enough noise that he looked up and saw me. He must have seen something that he didn't like, because he looked back at my dad with more anger than I had ever seen him with."

Throughout the story, Barry had gone frozen and his fingers had only started gripping tighter into his hair. "Then he marched up the stairs, and I thought Barry was angry at me so I got really, really scared. He grabbed me by the arm, but not tight enough to hurt, and practically dragged me out of there. I ate dinner for the first time with him and Iris. I had to go back for the night, but the next morning some police officers came over and inspected the place and it was pretty bad, like one of those drug dens, but I didn't think so at the time. The police thought it was pretty bad, though, because they let me stay with Barry after that and I kind of just never left." Wally felt a little embarrassed to have gotten so carried away, but he had figured that the more details, the better. Apparently so, because when Barry lifted his head, he was ghastly white.

"How did you know that?" he demanded of Dick.

Dick stared ahead with a carefully concealing blank expression. "I didn't," he said, pointing to where Wally stood. "Wally did."

Barry turned his head to look at where Wally was and, for just a second, the redhead felt like Barry was actually looking at him. But then the second passed and Barry went back to looking straight through.

But Wally was on a roll. "When I asked what my name should be for becoming Kid Flash, he said that I should be Baby Chick, because I was all yellow and you, Robin, were kind of like my role model for being a sidekick while Flash was my hero. He said that I should just combine both of my role models and keep the bird sidekick theme going."

"You told Wally that he should be called Baby Chick?" Dick asked Barry. Barry, amidst the cluster of emotions he was being assaulted with, actually gave out a breath that could have meant amusement.

"I-wow," Barry nervously breathed. "Uhm, is it possible- I mean, how do you- what can I do to- y'know, I want to be able to see him," he said shakily, wiping his palms off on his jeans.

Wally whooped, jumping up and pumping his fist into the air as he began to cheer. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Dick, yes! God, I love you, yes, yes, yes! He knows I'm here. He knows I'm real! It's my freaking birthday!"

Dick decided not to respond to Wally's obvious source of celebration in favour of relieving Barry's confusion. "You have to empty your mind," he said simply.

"'Empty my mind'?" Barry echoed. "How do I do that? I'm a speedster, it's pretty much impossible for me to go thoughtless." Unfortunately, Wally heard that and promptly sobered up.

"Well, we can still zone out," he protested.

Dick had to think about that for a moment. "I really don't know what having a hyperactive mind is like," he said slowly. "It's hard for me to imagine it. You just," he paused for a moment, struggling for the right words. "Don't think about anything? Stare at the wall and let yourself go blank. Zone out."

Barry scratched the back of his head, looking conflicted on how to take that information, but eventually nodded and did exactly as Dick said. He stared at the wall. Dick didn't dare move, didn't dare breathe, but he nodded at Wally. The redhead took the hint and began talking.

"Lalalala, what to say, what to say. Uhm, well, you should really get more sleep? Barry, I mean, not you, Dick. Well, I take that back. You should get some more sleep, too. Actually, everyone in the hero community needs to get more sleep. I need more sleep. I need to be physically capable of getting more sleep. Do you know the weirdest part about being a spirit? You don't sleep. You know why that's weird? Everything just feels like one long day. You said it's been a few weeks. It doesn't feel like weeks. At all. And months? Psh, it hasn't felt like months, either. It feels like the most dramatic day in the day of all days. It's like a soap opera season. Everything in one long day where everyone cries in the end and the same dramatic music plays every episode," Wally rambled.

'You watch soap operas?' Dick mouthed.

"I deny the fact that I compared not sleeping to a soap opera. Me? Soap operas? Nah. Aunt Iris watches them all the time. She denies it, but we all know that she does. Unlike me. I deny it, but we all know that I don't. That I don't watch them, I mean. Not that I don't deny watching them. Because I do deny watching them. Not deny as in to say something that's true is false, but deny as in it never happened. You know what? I should get off the topic of soap operas. Do you know what the Batcave looks like? It's a freaking museum. There's a T-Rex. There is a life-sized model of a green T-Rex in the Batcave and I have no idea why it's there. I don't think Rob knows why, either. It's just there. And it watches you. I feel like it's watching me and that's weird because a) I'm dead and b) it's dead. Then again, if I've learned one thing, it's that things that are supposed to be dead sometimes aren't really dead. Which might make zombies real. Which sucks. But that's okay, because I'm not solid, so if a zombie apocalypse happens then I'll be perfectly fine. In other words, the Walking Dead might be predicting the future, like the Mayans or something," continued the ghostly redhead as he began automatically pacing the carpet. He paused for a moment to glance at his uncle before continuing. Wally figured that Dick was pretty sick of hearing his voice ringing in his ears by the time the five minute mark had passed. He was honestly impressed with how long Barry was keeping his concentration. Wally knew from experience how short a speedster's attention span and patience could be.

Barry opened his eyes and shook his head, eyebrows creased in frustration. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Wally exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "I just gave a speech that could rival Martin Luther King Jr. and it's 'nothing'?"

Barry stood up abruptly and turned to face Dick, who was perched on the arm of the couch. "It's kind of ridiculous," he said with an awkward, sad chuckle. "I don't understand how it's possible for that to happen. And what makes it so that a blank mind is able to hear ghosts?"

Dick seemed to have no explanation to that. At least, no explanation that a scientist of such level could possibly accept. "Ghosts," Barry muttered with a shake of his head. "If ghosts were real, more people would have seen them by now. If he was haunting me, I'd have seen him by now. Things that can accidentally happen occur more than once." Barry put one hand on his hip as if to steel himself, breathing in slowly. Neither Dick nor Wally moved, watching as the speedster seemed to be running through something in his mind. Slowly, the older hero turned to eye Dick.

"You-," he started, staring at the boy. "I've spent all this time finally getting my life back together, after the person who had become as close to my child as someone can possibly get without being biological died. He's dead. Gone. And then you come. You got yourself hit by some gas or some mental illness or depression, and then you come in here trying to drag me back. You brought my hopes up, and now I feel like the efforts I've taken throughout these months haven't mattered at all." His breaths turned heavy and shaky as he put one hand out, though for what was uncertain. Probably to steady himself.

Dick wisely said nothing. "You're just seeing things, Dick," Barry croaked. "And by God, leave me and leave Wallace out of it."

Then, with a swish of the wind, the man was gone.

"Shit," Wally groaned, sinking to the floor as Dick stared silently into his hands. "So close. We were so close." Dick slowly slid off of the arm of the couch as the redhead began pressing into his eyes with the heels of his hands. "He could have- why couldn't he have-"

"It wouldn't have worked," Dick interrupted as he kneeled beside his friend, his palms rubbing his thighs. He stayed a safe distance away, a foot, enough to give the illusion of comfort between them but not enough to make it apparent that Wally was only air. When Wally looked ready to protest, Dick continued. "Not just because he's a speedster, Wally. I knew it wouldn't work."

"Then why did you try?" Wally rasped. His throat felt tight. His chest felt tight. The realisation that victory had been only seconds away cut through him like rigid knives and he wanted to scream at how unfair it all was. He had come so close. So close that his very soul yearned for nothing more than to follow Barry and keep talking, keep begging for the man to hear him.

Dick bit his lip. "You wanted to so badly," he said. "But you can't tell someone to empty their mind. They would have to think about emptying their mind to empty it. And telling them why only adds that to their command, to use as motivation, but they're still thinking. It just isn't possible."

"I thought it would be easy," Wally mumbled into his hand. "You heard and saw me just by zoning out. No magic spells or genetic experiments or 'chosen one' deals. No demons eating souls. Just plain zoning out."

"But it's not," the acrobat mumbled back, and Wally nodded into his hands. "Nothing's ever easy."

Nothing was ever fair.

"Batman, you need to let this go. Wally's name isn't a curse word. It's perfectly logical for Robin to be reminded of him when he saw Barry," Black Canary sighed as she stood in front of the Watchtower's zeta tube to Mount Justice. She had been about to go through to start an impromptu training session with herself and Superboy, as he was rapidly proving that once a week team sessions weren't going to cut it, before being intercepted by the Dark Knight himself.

"I'm not looking for your opinion, I'm informing you," Bruce rumbled.

Black Canary didn't look happy. "And what will you do? Send him to another therapist?"

Bruce wouldn't tell her that he'd actually been contemplating that. The issue was that Dick's recent activity was getting suspicious. There was nothing else to it but that and a rancid, terrible gut feeling. The boy became easily distracted even when there was nothing apparent to Bruce that could possibly be distracting. He laughed when nothing was funny, after a long period of grief where he never laughed at the most funny of things. He changed moods suddenly and violently and Bruce might have blamed it on hormones if the tests hadn't said that Dick was perfectly fine.

Dick was reacting to things out of sync with what was actually happening. At least, what was actually happening in the real world.

And that was what worried Bruce the most. Dick was always in his own world. The only world where Bruce didn't know what was going on. What was happening in that world of his?

"What my partner and I do is no concern of yours," vaguely responded Bruce.

"That's the thing," Black Canary huffed, unconvinced and more than a little frustrated. "This may be your team on paper, Batman, but it's my team, too. It's Aqualad's team, too. It's Red Tornado's team, too. These kids see me and Red Tornado more than they see you or their families. As their trainer, therapist, and friend, I deserve and need to know what's going on with them."

To some extent, Black Canary had a valid point. But Black Canary was more oblivious to the situation than Bruce was, and Bruce knew little enough already. "Then until the situation is investigated, Robin is being put on leave from the team. Consider him away for family matters." To Bruce, that was correct enough. He was part of Dick's family, after all.

Black Canary glared. She even opened her mouth, daring to give a snappy retort, when the zeta tubes lit up and the Flash appeared. Bruce stiffened, unwilling to discuss what probably had a lot to do with the Flash's deceased nephew in front of the man himself. But it didn't seem as if Bruce's reluctance would be necessary. That was apparent by the way the speedster stumbled from underneath the beam and covered his face with his hands.

The light glistened off of the clear liquid coating them. Black Canary started, eyes widened. "Barry!" she exclaimed, rushing over to her teammate's shoulder. Bruce knew that the liquid could only be tears, by Barry's posture and by where his hands were, but it didn't fully register that the man was crying until he gave off a soft sob.

The happy-go-lucky, obnoxious speedster. Crying. That was an odd concept.

Bruce really hated it when people cried.

"What hap-," Black Canary tried to ask, but Barry abruptly cut her off by yanking his hands from his eyes and glaring at Bruce. Bruce, needless to say, was taken aback.

"Do you ever care enough about your partner to actually know what's going on?" Barry spat, and Bruce was starting to wish that Barry would go back to being loud and stupidly happy. He had thought that a serious Barry would have brought about a nice change, but it only made everything feel weird and strange. As if the balance and order of things were being misplaced and disorganised. "Do you ever think about Robin more than your dumb mission? Than your work?"

Bruce stood in silence as Barry went off on a short tirade, attracting the attention of Green Arrow and Aquaman, who were close by. Black Canary worriedly touched Barry's elbow, but he wasn't paying attention to anything but his own thoughts and the man in front of him. "No, you don't. You can't be bothered to even ask Robin if that kid's okay! Because no, he's not okay, in fact, he's ill."

"What are you talking about?" Bruce growled, already well on his way in blocking out the spat insults. Barry was ranting in his own anger. Of course Bruce paid Dick the due amount of attention. Dick came first. Didn't Barry know that?

Didn't Dick?

"He's sick, Batman!" Barry shouted. "He thinks he can see ghosts. He thinks that my nephew is a ghost! He thinks that Wally is following him around, and he tried convincing me to believe the same!"

There was a shocked silence from the League members within earshot as those words seemed to be what put the expressive speedster under. A choked cry crawled up from Barry's throat and he shook his head violently. "Someone's needed to set you straight for a while. Take this as an example. Because take it from me, Batman, when Robin is suddenly yanked from you, you'll know everything that you did wrong that you never noticed before. And you'll never be able to fix them." With that, he raced back through the zeta beam, the machine almost too slow to react to Barry's fast moving particles. He was gone before the tube finished announcing his code.

Bruce wasn't far behind.

It wasn't hard to track where Dick was, considering it had been Barry who had delivered 'the news', as Bruce was going to vaguely call it, and the fact that Dick also had a tracker in his jean pocket. It took everything Bruce had not to kick down his teammate's back door when he arrived in full costume from a nearby alley. Instead, he restrained himself to lockpicking. When the backdoor of the Allen household swung open, it wasn't hard to find Dick sitting nearby on the floor.

His shoulders were hunched and he looked like he was concentrating on something. Something that wasn't Bruce. His palms were slowly rubbing his thighs, a nervous habit that Bruce had discovered while first training the boy, and his eyes were squeezed shut.

Bruce was going to call out for Robin until he saw Dick's glasses lying abandoned on the other side of the carpet. Why the boy had flung them there, Bruce had no idea, but the man was thankful in a way. At least it meant that he could call Dick by his real name and the boy would know that he was serious. "Dick," he growled.

Dick didn't look up, but his hands stopped moving. He mumbled something, but it was too quiet for Bruce to catch.

Bruce wasn't a conversationalist. He strode up to Dick and planted a palm firmly on the boy's shoulder, kneeling so that he could try to look his ward in the eyes. Dick's own eyes remained on the ground for a few more seconds, until Batman's patient position coaxed them upwards. Bruce's eyes narrowed behind the cowl. Time to cut straight to chase. "Where is Wally?"

Dick stared. He was searching for something and, for once, Bruce didn't know what. Dick was part of a world that Bruce had no place in, no knowledge about. After a few minutes of silence, the boy finally opened his mouth. "Behind you," he said quietly. Bruce didn't bother turning around.

"No, he's not," responded Bruce.

More silence. At first, Bruce wondered why Dick let the silence lapse so easily. He normally never did. In fact, Dick hated silence. But then it occurred to him that, according to Barry, Dick was hearing an extra voice that didn't exist for the rest of them. No longer existed. Dick nodded subtly to himself as his eyes narrowed, too. "You're so ready to just accept that he's gone."

"That's because he is."

Bruce wanted to think that he was being gentle when he coaxed Dick into a standing position, but he hadn't been gentle in so long that it was hard to remember the meaning. A person just didn't gently hospitalise the Joker or gently save Gotham from a crazy plant lady turning its citizens into trees. "You not wanting to believe that is the reason you think you're being haunted," Bruce continued.

"I'm not being haunted," Dick protested. "Haunt is an ugly word. He's lonely, Bruce."

The 'just like me' went unsaid, but it went unsaid in a language that Bruce could read. "Let's go home," Bruce said, and he even surprised himself with how quiet his words were. They were practically whispered, unnecessary in a house that held only the two of them.

Dick complied, but didn't agree. In fact, he said nothing at all.