Chapter XII

Birds, Bats And Fangirls

After the latest events concerning Dick in relation with Bruce, Barbara and Artemis, Wally was starting to feel hopeful. The younger boy seemed to slowly inch towards opening up. Not to Wally, that he had done a long time ago, but to everyone else. As far as he knew, he was the only one who knew why Dick was the way he was, even though he could not entirely understand all his reasons, much less believe they were good for his best friend. Last night, they had talked, being that they had both been at Mount Justice for a movie evening with the whole team. Acting on an unplanned need for some more company, both heroes had ended up staying the night at the cave.

"I've been having dreams lately, nightmares sometimes," the young acrobat had suddenly confessed.

Wally had not thought too much of it at first, assuming that they were the same ones Dick usually had. He knew he often had nightmares of his parents' death. But when Dick had began to describe them, he had received a completely different picture of the situation. To be honest, Wally felt happy to hear of what Dick had told him. Now that might sound cruel, and of course Wally did not like it when his friend was having a hard time, but from what he could gather, Dick was finally starting to seriously doubt his decision of keeping his identity secret from Batman. He was staring to have thoughts of possibly sharing that one and other secrets with his mentor. Why would Wally not be happy? He had shared his opinion with Dick, just like he had done so many times before, but the thirteen-year-old stubbornly kept searching for reasons not to go through with it.

"He's got a good view of Robin. If I tell him who I am, what I've done, he'll never see me like that again."

Wally had assured him that Batman, that Bruce, would never see him as anything less than he is, as anything less than a boy with a heart the size of a mountain, as anything less than the hero he was. Of course, Dick heard nothing of that.

"He gave me that one chance back then and I messed it up. I practically forced myself into his life, Wally. And right after... after breaking his heart."

And it was true. Not being able to take Dick in after his parents' death an thinking the boy had died even, had broken the man's heart. Batman had confessed this to Robin and Robin had told Kid Flash. Batman believed to have failed to save John and Mary Grayson and to have failed their son as well, after getting the chance to try and make sure he would never be hurt again. But while Dick believed that after those events he did not deserve another chance, Wally was almost sure Bruce would feel a 100% better if he could give him something he had not been able to before. Again, Dick had a hard time seeing this. Wally thought it was almost like being blind from love, only Dick wasn't quite seeing the positive aspects.

"Remember that time I went off to fight that guy on my own without telling him? Even keeping something as small as that from him made him look so... disappointed when he found out. And I know he must already feel disappointed because I haven't told him my identity, but imagine how he'd feel knowing I'd kept being Dick Grayson from him."

As much as he would like to say otherwise, Wally could understand his friend to an extend. He knew he would not like being left in the dark about something that meant so much him. However, he also knew that he would probably rather want to find out late than never. He just did not know how to make Dick realize that.

But then he had gotten that brilliant idea. Well, at least it seemed pretty brilliant to him, so Dick would surely think the same way, right? Either way, he had shared it with the Boy Wonder.

"So you're saying I should keep dropping small hints and slowly let him figure it out by himself?"

It had not been hard to see how unsure the younger boy was about his plan, but in Wally's mind it just seemed perfect.

"Dude, he'll probably figure it out as soon as I let one thing slip! There's a reason I don't tell him certain things, you know?"

Okay, sure, Batman was smart. But him figuring out Dick's identity was the whole point of the plan so Wally did not have anything against that. Dick could just start off with telling him a few things about himself that would not really give away anything just to see how Bruce would react and to get used to it. No one expected him to just go and tell the world his deepest secrets, even though Dick probably felt exactly like that.

"What would I even tell him?" Dick had asked, irrated at slowly but surely being convinced to do this.

Wally had not given him much of a straight answer, making the other have to settle with a "I don't know, just something personal he doesn't know." Really, Wally did not care what he started with. He was simply supposed to get used to sharing things with his mentor - Wally always tried hard not call him anything close to father in front of Dick, even though he was definitely the closest thing the boy had to one - that were not in any way related with being Robin. He was supposed to share Dick Grayson things with Bruce Wayne.

"I still don't know, Wally. What if he does find out without me meaning to and he doesn't react the way you say he will? What am I supposed to do then?"

Wally had not told him what he should do in such a case, because he could not. He did not know, no one did. And that is why Dick just needed to trust him, trust Bruce. That way he would see that he could trust both of them with anything. And if things would not go their way... Well, they will cross that bridge when - if - they come to it.

After staying the night at Wally's room, Dick left him claiming he needed some time to think. Wally let him go. It was one half hearted argument with Artemis and a couple of video games (that were rather boring without Robin) later that Batman assembled the team for a mission. By the time Wally entered the briefing room Robin was already there. It was difficult to discern whether the thirteen-year-old had arrived with the Dark Knight or by himself, but Wally did not bother asking. He had asked his best friend to take a fairly big step already and he did not want to question all of his choices at the moment. For now, he would just watch and hope that Robin would do the right thing.

As Batman started filling them in on the important information concerning the oncoming mission, Wally looked over to Robin and did a doubletake. Was Robin actually looking nervous? In front of the team? In front of Batman? Wally laughed aloud at how ridiculous the thought was, then stopped abruptly, remembering where he was. Seeing the incredulous expression of Artemis, M'gann's confused frown, Kaldur's scolding look and Batman's annoyed glare, he took a nervous step back and suddenly felt very embarrassed. Trying to distract himself from it, he looked back at Robin and their eyes met. Wally's eyes widened behind his mask when he realized that he had in fact seen right. Robin did look nervous. Realization hit him and his gaze switched between the bird and the bat. Was Robin really following through with their plan? Was he going to take the first step already?

He saw Robin take a deep breath, seemingly help him calm down. Batman finished talking and Wally grimaced as he realized he did not know half the information for their mission. At least he had been listening when Batman had informed them of what they were supposed to do. He guessed he would just have to wing it. The rest of team had been listening after all, so they were going to know what to do. Good thing Kaldur was team leader and not him.

As Wally and the others started on their way to the mountain hangar, he noticed how Robin stayed behind, turning to Batman. Then they were out of view and earshot, leaving Wally the curious speedster to wonder what the two were doing. It felt like an eternity had passed when the youngest team member caught up with them, entering the bioship with a meaningful glance at Wally, silently telling him to wait and that they would talk about it later.

Never tell a speedster to wait, Wally thought grimly as they ascended and left the hangar for their destination.

"He did? That's awesome!"

"Yeah. Stop fangirling."

Despite the desperate attempt at appearing nonchalant about it, the smile tugging at the corners of his lips could not escape Wally. Dick was indeed very chalant about this, in the positive way. Wally's grin widened snd he nudged his friend.

"Oh come on, Dickie. You know you loved it!"

Dick rolled his eyes and huffed.

"I didn't say I loved it."

The redhead smirked.

"Oh believe me, you don't have to say it."

Dick grimaced and looked at his feet, blushing lightly.

"That obvious?"

"That obvious." Wally chuckled and patted his friend's back. "Don't worry, I bet the big scary bat felt the exact same way."

Dick's eyebrows furrowed and scratched his elbow, looking uncertain.

"You think?"

Wally shot him a look.

"I thought he was the one who hugged you?"

Dick's blush brightened.

"Right."

They fell silent for a while and Wally simply watched Dick, wondering what was going on in his best friend's head. Deciding to let the subject drop - he was morethan satisfied with how their plan was going - and instead chose to speak about another thing that had been plaguing his mind lately.

"Sooo..." he began, knowing it would make Dick suspicious. That boy always knew shen Wally would start with a conversation topic he would rather not get into. And he was not wrong this time. "What is going on between you and Batgirl?"

Dick frowned.

"Batgirl?"

The grin on Wally's face threatened to split his face apart.

"Yeah! Batgirl! You know? That's so what Barbara's hero name would be, am I right?"

Dick looked anything but amused but Wally's expression failed to falter. He had mentioned how Barbara had wanted to come with him and help with the heroing and to be honest, Wally could understand the girl. From what he knew the two were pretty good friends and the other readhead was probably about as stubborn as the Boy Wonder himself. But of course even someone with as short as an attention span as Wally's understood the dangers of fighting crime, especially in Gotham. The city was gigantic and it still held first place on crime rate.

"Jeez, I was just joking. Plus, I said it's what her hero name would be. You convinced her not to do it, remember?"

Dick sighed, relaxing his stance and turning his expression to one of slight worry.

"I just hope you're right. She did promise me, but it's Babs we're talking about."

Wally shrugged. Barbara Gordon seemed like a smart girl. She knew it was way too dangerous to go out taking down bad guys without any sort of training.

"Hey, don't worry too much about it. She'll be okay."

"If you say so..."

"Yep. You know you can trust the Wall-man, dude!" A confident smirk played on the redhead's lips as he leaned onto the ebony's left shoulder. "Anyway, about my earlier question... Have the two of you started dating yet?"

"Wally!"

I do not own Young Justice or any of the DC Universe characters.

We are making progress! The end to this story is slowly creeping closer and I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of KF again. The story, not the speedster. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! That's the last one for now :) I gotta write the next chapter first XD

(Hey... KF... a chapter... So, is this a KFC then? Yeah, I know. I'm horrible.)

Alec

[FaHa]