For haunt-the-stars

"Come on, Dick," Wally murmurs, head lowered as he sits in the chair next to Dick's bed side (or should he say cot side, since they're in the Batcave's medbay. Maybe he would have, but even his mind, the joke falls flat). He has his hands clasped in front of him, and he hates this feeling of waiting. It's too slow. It helps him feel better to talk to Dick, though. To mutter, "Come on, Dick. Wake up soon, or else Batman's gonna fillet me."

He won't. Batman's always been through here more times in the past three hours than Wally can count, and Wally doesn't doubt that Batman's too worried about Dick to do much more than grunt in Wally's general direction.

Unfortunately, Wally hasn't known Batman—Bruce Wayne—long enough to translate Bat-speak, so he's at a loss for what that particular grunt means. He hopes it means that he's not going to kill Wally. But without Dick there to translate, and with Tim being uncooperative and not speaking to either Bruce or Wally, it means that Wally is out of luck.

"You know," someone says, and Wally looks up to see a girl about Tim's age—Cassandra, Wally remembers—next to him, looking down at her. He doesn't know her very well, but she's always shied away from his exuberance.

"Don't take it personally," Dick had told him after one too many times she'd disappeared on them in the manor. "She doesn't know you well, and you're probably just too loud and obnoxious."

"So are you!" Wally had claimed.

Dick had just shrugged with an easygoing grin. "Yeah, well, I'm her brother. She has to like me."

That conversation had dissolved into wrestling pretty quickly, and Wally thinks that they'd broken one of Alfred's weird vases. They'd scrambled to clean up the shards, both reminiscing about the times they'd done this before when they were kids. Wally is pretty sure he'd seen a shadow watching them that day, and he wonders now if it was Cassandra.

"You're not going to wake him up by staring at him," Cassandra says, eyes flickering over to where Dick is lying unconscious on the cot. She looks sad. "But he's not in any danger, so it should be okay to rest and eat something."

"I'm not hungry," Wally says at once, even though it's a lie.

He's starving. Not to mention exhausted. But all he can see when he closes his eyes is turning around to see the bullet piercing through Dick's suit. Dick falling. Wally had barely been fast enough to catch Dick and flash him away somewhere safe. The stricken looks of his family when Wally had brought him to the Batcave.

Cassandra hums, but it doesn't seem like she believes him. "I know how your abilities work."

"I don't think I can leave him."

"Alfred can make you something," Cassandra offers, her eyes soft and her voice gentle, but there's something powerful about her that Wally can't quite place. But then she looks back over at Dick, and she hunches in on herself, and all that power turns to fragile hurt. She's sad. This is her big brother, Wally realizes, and she probably hurts just as much as Wally does to see Dick like this, but she's torn herself away from him to take care of herself. Probably because that's what Dick would want.

But Dick is Wally's best friend. And he was there when Dick was shot. He'd had to watch as Dick fell like a puppet with its strings cut. And he sits here and he doesn't think he can tear himself away until he knows for sure that Dick's eyes will open again.

Cassandra seems to understand, because she sits down on the empty chair and pulls her knees up. "It sounds bad," she says quietly, "but we're all used to this. It's the price of being…human, I guess."

"I'm human," Wally croaks. "I'm human, and this doesn't happen to me. I can dodge bullets at super speed and I have accelerated healing, and sometimes—sometimes I forget that Dick isn't me. He can't take the hits I do and keep on going."

"Maybe," and Cassandra sighs. "But Dick's one of the best when it comes to this, and there's a reason."

"Yeah?" Wally snorts. "And what's that?"

Cassandra smiles. "Friends. Family. The people he loves, and the ones who love him."

Wally runs a hand down his face. "That's not going to help him dodge a bullet when it's aimed straight at him."

"Maybe not. But it gives him something to fight for." Cassandra hesitates, and then she stares at Dick again. She seems almost—reluctant. "Dick…is different. Bruce fights for the city, but Dick fights for love. Family. Friendship."

"Shhh," Dick moans, his eyes still closed and his face pale, but his hands twitches towards where Cassandra is sitting. "'M tryna sleep over here, Cassie. You, too, Walls. Love ya, but shuttup."

Wally blinks, a little startled as he looks over at his best friend, but from the corner of his eye he sees Cassandra bite back a small smile.

"Dick?" Wally asks, almost in disbelief, that guilt threatening to overwhelm him again. He hadn't realized that Cassandra had been distracting him from it until Dick's blue, blue eyes open and catch his green, and they just look at each other. Until Wally feels something hitch in his chest and has to wrap his fingers around Dick's weak hand. "Thank God."

Dick huffs an amused breath, his eyes hazy with pain killers, but he squeezes back as much as he can. "Come here often?"

"Shut the hell up, Dick," Wally says, but something loosens and Wally is crying tears of relief. "God, you scared me half to death."

"Jason's the one who does the death jokes around here," Dick half slurs, a loopy grin across his face. "He's not gonna be happy you're taking 'em over."

Wally laughs wetly, and he has to take a couple of deep breaths before he can speak again. But before he can, he looks around in bewilderment, because—

"Where did your sister go?"

"T'get Bruce," Dick says.

"I didn't even see her leave."

"She's sneakier than a ninja."

"Why is she getting your dad?"

"He's a worrywart."

"You got shot."

"So're you."

"It nicked a lung."

Dick huffs another laugh, but he grimaces this time and shifts. "I think the pain meds are starting to wear off."

It's less guilt this time around and more worry that makes Wally lean forward and squeeze Dick's hand just a bit tighter. "Are you alright?"

Dick hums and closes his eyes. "Ask me again in a couple hours."

"Dick," Wally says, and Dick opens his eyes up again. He looks exhausted, but he meets Wally's eyes, and looks slightly more coherent than before. He waits patiently, giving Wally a I'm listening look, and Wally swallows. "I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough."

"And if I say I'm the one who's sorry?" Dick says, his tone sharp all of the sudden. "Are you gonna let me take the blame for this one? Or are you gonna pull a Bruce and take all of the guilt?"

"Why would you be—"

"Because I jumped in front of it, Wally," Dick says, his voice solemn, and Wally feels something sink his in stomach at the serious look in Dick's eyes. At Dick's words. "It was heading straight towards you, and I knew you wouldn't have been able to get out of the way in time, eve with your speed. So, I jumped."

Wally lets go of Dick's hand and stands up, staring at his best friend. Dick looks—resigned. Like he's expecting Wally to leave and not come back. But—that's not—

"I can heal faster," Wally says. "You shouldn't have—"

"You can still die, Wally," Dick says, and his voice is hoarse and there's pain in his face that Wally thinks is from something other than the bullet wound in his chest. "Not even you can outrun a shot through the heart."

Wally knows that his expression is showing all of the disbelief and pain and fear at the fact that his best friend jumped in front of a bullet that had been meant for Wally. "Dick—"

"I saw him pull the trigger and my body just moved," Dick tells him. "And honestly? I'd do it again. I'll be fine in a few weeks, but I don't know if you'd be. There's no way to know that if I hadn't taken that bullet you wouldn't be six feet under the ground."

Wally sits back down and runs both hands through his hair, taking that in. He's not—happy about it. But he's not angry. He knows Dick. He knows that Dick is the kind of person to put someone above himself.

Dick fights for love, Cassandra had said, and yeah. Wally can't believe how true that is. That Dick had taken a bullet for a speedster. For someone, if they'd just been facing the right direction and making a rookie mistake, that could just run away from it without a scratch.

But Dick had jumped in front. Had watched his back.

"Thank you," Wally says, wrapping his hand around Dick's again. "For saving my life."

Dick shoots him a tired smile. "Anytime, Wally."