A/n: I saw this one and immediately decided to do it on Dick. Jason was my second idea, but then I was already set on Dick and Wally since the speedster carries him in bridal style sometimes - or I imagine it like that anyway, yk?
"Oh my god," was all that Wally could say when he finally slid to a stop in front of the limp heap of blue and black, slick red, and pained but stupidly charming smile.
"Hey, Mustard," Dick slurred as he smiled lopsidedly up at the speedster who could only sigh and close his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Mustard?" He asked, then repeated it with more disbelief as the whole situation started to process. "Mustard?"
"Yeah," Dick mumbled, lifting a floppy arm to gesture vaguely at his friend. "Yellow, red, mustard." He said it with all the confidence in the world as if it made complete sense - which it probably did to him, in his fuzzy mind, Wally deduced.
"Okay, sure. By that logic, you're bloody bruises. Oh wait, no, that's not a nickname, that's me calling it how I see it so come on, let's get you up and somewhere I can patch you up." Wally bent down to pick Dick up, much to the former Boy Wonder's groggy protests.
It was a process to pick Dick up for Wally, but one he'd done many times before. Sometimes just for fun, but more often recently out of necessity. As usual, he picked the younger boy up and carried him in bridal style, adjusting his grip to account for Dick's visible injuries - of which there was a concerning amount of.
"Hey, just curious, how much longer you think you can stay awake?" He asked a half-unconscious Dick.
"Not much longer…," Dick admitted, head already lolling into Wally's chest.
"Okay, just try your best buddy. I'm gonna run now, okay?"
He only received a hum of affirmation from Dick, which concerned him more than he already was. Since Dick was usually so full of energy, and lightheartedness, it was always a good indicator to how bad of a condition he was in - physically and/or mentally - that he could barely respond.
It was still an answer to his question though, and so he dug in his foot into the ground before he set off.
"This isn't my apartment," Dick said groggily as he frowned and looked around blearily.
Wally set Dick down so he could stand by himself, but seeing as he couldn't, he kept an arm around the injured man to help him to the bathroom.
"No it is not," Wally said simply, more focused on how pale Dick looked.
Finding Dick had been a coincidence, and it worried Wally greatly to think about what might have happened if he'd decided not to go to Blüdhaven that day. Funny thing was though, the only reason he'd wanted to go to Blüd in the first place was to check up on Dick just in general, not at all expecting to come across his friend bleeding out in a random alleyway.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected in the first place now that he thought of it though. All he knew was that Bruce and Dick had argued recently, something he'd learnt from Damian when Dick hadn't answered the phone. When he'd asked Dick's other brothers, they'd all told him of separate cases their oldest brother were helping them with, but that it had been a while since he'd contacted them though. Knowing his friend, how he was raised, and other events in the past, Wally had gotten a little worried and had resolved to check up on Dick sometime soon.
It was a good thing he'd gone today then.
"Wait a sec," Dick said, a little more coherently than before even as he squinted suspiciously at the room around him. Wally glanced at him sideways, still focused on keeping his friend upright, even as he continued. "This is your place. In… some other place, far away."
Wally rolled his eyes. "Yes, Dick, this is my place. What about it?"
"Why're we here?"
"Where else would we be?"
"My place."
Wally opened his mouth to respond, but decided against it. There was no real point to arguing, and he could see Dick's eyes closing for the slightest bit longer each time they blinked. He was getting a little heavier too, which meant he was probably gonna pass out soon, which meant he wasn't doing great.
"We can talk about this late, Dick. Let's just get you to the bathtub first before you bleed all over my carpet."
The fact that Dick didn't protest to the idea slightly alarmed Wally, and he hurried to get his friend to the bathroom and grab the medical supplies he had.
"Clothes off," he ordered, urgency slipping into his voice a little because Dick did exactly as he asked, immediately and without making a joke or comment about the instructions. He helped Dick unzip his suit and he inhaled sharply when he saw the full extent of his friend's injury. He had to close his eyes for a second to compose himself and disconnect, letting his training take over so he could treat Dick effectively without emotions getting in the way.
Dick stayed mostly silent as Wally worked, helping where he could but otherwise just sitting there with various expressions of pain on his face, hissing or inhaling sharply or blowing out slow breaths occasionally when the pain got too much. Wally got out a bottle of painkillers from his drawer - slightly strong ones since his metabolism didn't really work with normal ones - and gave Dick one pill and a glass of water, purposely keeping the bottle away from him just as an extra, hopefully overly cautious measure.
Once Dick was all wrapped up, his various injuries dealt with and most of his blood staying inside of his body now, they just stayed there in silence in the bathroom. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, Dick's face crumpled, and Wally's eyes widened, his arms immediately going to embrace his friend and pull him close as the tears started coming.
Careful of his injuries, Wally just stayed silent and let Dick cry against him, occasionally rubbing the guy's back in a comforting gesture as Dick sobbed and hiccupped.
"Oh, Dick," he murmured, as his friend shook in his arms.
"I'm sorry," came the barely distinguishable response, and Wally only held him tighter.
"It's okay just to say 'I'm not okay', you know that right?"
Dick only seemed to sob harder, but Wally just let him get it all out. He was used to this happening by now, not that he liked it any more, each time it happened. He knew the best way was to just let Dick cry, and just be there for him if he wanted to talk or just snuggle with someone. It always got like this when life became too much for Dick, too much for one person to deal with, stretched thin until he snapped just like this - an occurance that had been becoming way too frequent for Wally's liking.
Eventually, the sobs slowed and quieted to sniffles, until it finally devolved into silence. One glance at Dick told Wally that the guy was completely exhausted and in no state to go home and look after himself - not that Wally was planning for that to happen anyway.
"I'll get some of my clothes for you to change into, okay? Fresh ones, don't worry," he smirked, but it faded when he didn't even get so much as a twitch of the lip from Dick. "Dick? Hey, you still with me?"
"Yeah," Dick said quietly, tired eyes looking up at Wally as he tried to offer a small smile, but couldn't and gave up. "Look, it's fine, I'll just go home. I - "
"You're not a burden, Dick. I'm not being forced to do this out of common courtesy, I want to do this. I don't think you're in any state to go home and take care of yourself right now, and I don't think you want to be alone anyway. And if you still have stupid thoughts in your head like that, then think of it as just us hanging out. We haven't done that in a while, right, so why not get changed, I'll find a movie to watch, and we make this night into something fun, huh?"
Dick considered, and this time, the small, tired smile appeared. "Okay. Thanks, Wallman."
"Anytime, Dick." He smiled sadly, tone soft but serious. "Just call me once in a while if it's this bad, okay? That's all I ask. Call me, talk to me, and i'll plan a night for us to chill, or i'll help you with whatever you need. You're my best friend, so I want to help you or just hang out. So just… don't forget you have my number?"
Dick swallowed hard, but nodded. "Yeah, 'm sorry."
"Whatever, enough with the sorries. I'm gonna go get you some better clothes - because as much as I'm cool with you wandering around my house half naked, Artemis might be popping by sometime and that is an awkward situation I don't think I wanna deal with today - then I'll pop some popcorn, get Netflix or something open, and we live on the couch for the next ten hours, sound good?"
Dick breathed out a soft laugh. "Sounds good."
"Great," Wally grinned, before he sped out the door to his closet.
A/n: Just some Wally & Dick fluff to end it off. I could have gone deeper into Dick's little breakdown there, but 1) it's 11 pm right now and it's unfortunately a weekday tmrw, 2) I don't feel like going into that dark-ish mindset since it's still technically halloween and I'm still kind of riding on that high, and 3) I've done plenty other stuff with Dick's problems and vague just felt the right way to go with this.
Anyway, Happy Halloween (even if it might be a little late by the time I actually post this), stay safe, and see ya soon.
- CrowofArcadiaOaks