Title: One Change To Last A Lifetime
Disclaimers: Characters aren't mine. Young Justice isn't mine.
Warnings: Slash
Notes: Written for Jazyrha's Birthday. Sorry girl, I managed to keep this one a secret from you :P

...

"Hi Batman!" Wally's cheerful voice called out. "Bye Batman!"

And like that he was gone again. The young red head, who only a few days before had turned sixteen, was rarely still, but in the year that the Young Justice group had been in place Batman had grown very used to his behaviour. He was still as close as he had always been with Dick and so much close contact with kids his own age had actually done Dick some noticeable good. Bruce didn't doubt that being raised by Batman, following the way he worked, would stain Dick just as losing his parents had, though Dick was already more noticeably verbose than Bruce had ever been.

…

Black Canary had come to him, not long after a year had passed since Young Justice had been set up, and announced that Batman needed to get involved in the youngsters physical training. Granted he already did that with Dick, back at the Batcave, and the others learned with their mentors, but she was not prideful enough to admit that Bruce was a better fighter than she was, possibly the best in the League. Each of them had their strengths and weaknesses, but Wally in particularly, needed someone to guide and train his brain, rather than his body. His fighting abilities were excellent, being speed enhanced as they were. He could process ideas, hints, clues, faster than anyone else when fighting, but he didn't often think about something before he did it. Black Canary wanted Batman to get him to slow down, just enough to understand why he had to think before he ran headfirst into trouble.

…

"Kid Flash!" Bruce snapped and Wally had skidded to a halt, a guilty expression on his face. "The rest of you, get out." The others had flashed Wally sympathetic looks before bolting the training room remarkably fast and Wally had fidgeted uncertainly. "You know what you've done." Bruce folded his arms across his chest.

"Yeah I know," Wally rubbed at that shock of red hair. "I know I shouldn't have tried that move, but I thought I could pull it off, and it would have saved so much time and…"

"This was a real world simulation," Bruce interrupted. "You have to trust your teammates to be where they need to be. If this had been real life, you would have put them in unnecessary danger, let alone yourself."

"But the real world isn't like this," Wally protested. "Something always changes! I thought we had to be adaptable!"

Bruce narrowed his eyes,

"That was not the point of this exercise."

"But I am right though!" the young hero threw up his arms. All of them had gotten braver about arguing back to the older generation of heroes as they had grown further into adulthood.

"Nothing had changed with the simulation."

"I saw an opportunity, I took it," Wally folded his arms across his chest, mimicking Batman's pose, though his hip was thrust out cockily to one side, an unconscious sign of his nervousness.

Bruce could feel the exasperation growing. No wonder Black Canary had wanted his involvement with training. He knew Dick could be stubborn, but he had also quickly learnt what Bruce wanted when it came to learning new skills. Wally seemed to either be incredibly thick-headed, which he doubted, or incredibly stubborn and there was something about his wilful nature that wound Bruce up just the wrong way. Yet, somehow, Bruce knew it completed the Wally West package and that he'd be less of a person, a hero, without it.

…

Barry had always been proud of Wally, and Bruce could understand why. The young man, as he was rapidly becoming, had always been thoughtful of others, caring, willing to put himself out to make sure others came first. He had all the traits to make a hero, even if he didn't have his super speed, but he was genuinely unaware of his own generous good nature. Wally may have been cocky, bragged about his powers, but he was a teenage boy and showing off was part and parcel of growing up. Bruce knew, deep down, that Wally thought he'd never live up to the legacy of his uncle, that he was second rate and not good enough. He may appear to be unenthusiastic about the more monotonous aspects of training, the 'boring bits' as he put it, but Bruce knew Wally was often training when the others weren't around. His speed often meant he could almost appear to be in two places at once.

Bruce, himself, wasn't proud of Wally, not like he was of Dick, not until the Young Justice team had proved themselves on a particularly difficult mission. They worked together as a team flawlessly, using all the training they had been given and had brought in a particularly dangerous gang, saving all the hostages without injury to anyone. Everyone of them had been full of energy, life and joy at their success and the dark haired man had smiled for them, remembering what it felt like to have a plan work so well. Wally had seen him smile, gotten over his shock at seeing such an expression on Bruce's face remarkably quickly and his own grin had grown even wider in response.

…

Dick had been asking for Bruce to assign him, them, solo missions, stating they wouldn't always have each other and that Batman often went out alone. Bruce wasn't sure when Dick had mentioned it to Wally, but mention it he had and now Wally was pestering his ear off over the same thing. He had already, silently, agreed that it was a good idea, but he needed to be sure he wasn't sending them out on something perilous. The young heroes had become dearer to him than he thought they would and to put any of them in danger that was over their heads was not something he would do. Bruce assigned those missions, no one else, therefore any injury that they accumulated was his responsibility. Barry had whole heartedly agreed to Batman being in charge of Young Justice, effectively entrusting the safety of his nephew, family, to Bruce, seemingly without a second thought. That was almost a scary thought, not that Batman got scared, but The Flash respected his judgement, even if he didn't always agree with his opinions and methods.

…

Wally laughed at the message Dick scrawled down the cast over his left wrist as the younger boy passed the pen to M'gann. It had been a nasty break, though the teenage had been remarkable calm about it, but with his faster recovery time he would be spending half the time in plaster that a normal human would. It had been a bit of a shock for the group because, whilst they had each had minor injuries, none of them had anything as serious as a broken bone yet. The fact that Wally had gotten his from, essentially, messing around, didn't detract from the fact one of their number had a visible sign of their frailty to show the world. Bruce hated the red coloured plaster, more than he thought he would and he couldn't grasp, fully, why. Yes he cared for all the members of Young Justice, but if it had been Dick with his arm in plaster, then Bruce would have been more concerned about lecturing his adopted protégée about the consequences of being careless for just one moment. All he wanted to do for Wally is undo the hurt done and he didn't understand why. He had offered no reprimand, as he normally would, nor sympathy, as suited Batman, choosing instead to remain silent until he could comprehend why.

…

Bruce didn't know what possessed him to walk into Wally's room that day, that hour, that moment, but he found the young man standing beside the window, a large piece of red cloth dangling from both fists and his eyes blank as he stared at it. It took not even half a second for Bruce to recognise the cloth for what it was; Barry Allen's Flash uniform, and what that meant for Wally. He came to stand beside him in silence, waiting for the words he knew would come.

"If I put this on, if I become The Flash, then Barry's really gone, he's really dead." Bruce waited longer. Wally swallowed, clearly fighting his emotions back, "I don't want him to be dead. He always showed me what to do, taught me so much…"

"Notice you used the past tense," Bruce commented, voice steady, normal, yet caring and gentle. "You have already accepted you have lost someone you loved deeply, even if you don't realise it yet. Barry taught you everything he knew and you learnt well. He often spoke with how proud he was of you, how he knew you'd become a brilliant Flash one day."

"I was never supposed to be The Flash!" Wally turned to him with a pained expression written all over that young face.

"The likelihood of Barry, of any of us, dying in the line of duty is high, you know that."

There was a moment of silence before red head whispered,

"Did he really say that?"

"Frequently."

"You make it sound like he annoyed you with it," Wally tried to lighten his mood, but his lip trembled and his eyes shone with unshed tears. It torn at the dark haired man's broken heart and he found himself offering more comfort than he thought he knew how.

"It is natural to grieve, especially when you lose family."

"Oh god…" Wally choked out, dropping the uniform as his fingers went numb, pain flooding through his system. Bruce watched the tears spill out over his cheeks and Wally groped around for something to wipe his face with, which eventually he found. It helped him get a hold on his emotions, burying his face into the slightly rough material he was grasping, until he realised what he was actually crying into. "Oh…crap!"

Bruce tried not to smile as Wally hastily rubbed at the end of the Batcape, trying to dry it. His grief was momentarily forgotten as he desperately tried not to invoke the 'Batwrath' as he had dubbed it, from all his moments of stupidity that had somehow annoyed Bruce more than anyone else. Somehow it made the young red head endearing. Bruce stooped to pick up the fallen uniform, feeling for a moment his own grief over the loss of his friend, before he past it back to Wally. "Perhaps a new design will help you assume your own identity as The Flash, rather than taking on Barry's old one."

Wally stared at the uniform for a moment before looking up at Batman and giving him a tentative smile,

"Yeah, I think it would. Thank you."

Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything, perhaps he should have said 'You're welcome', but what fell out of Bruce's mouth was, "Any time." And that made the uncertain smile steady into a real one.

…

Everyone knew Batman had cameras everywhere. Everyone knew Batman watched the monitors linked to said cameras closely. Everyone knew that but no one would think it was wrong. Yeah, sure it was creepy, but that was Batman all over. What many of them didn't know was that the times when Batman often sat at the monitors were the times when he was least likely to be disturbed and most likely to catch Wally moving at normal speed.

…

Bruce could identify the emotion that flashed through him the moment Wally tipped back his head and laughed, laying a hand on the woman's shoulder that had made the joke. It was jealousy.

…

That first night, when Bruce had awoken; skin slick with sweat, body aching in unfulfilled need, chest heaving like he had run for his life, he had stalked down to his gym and physically tried to beat a mental block into himself. He had pushed himself to almost the point of collapse, but, with the sky lightening with dawn, Bruce had realised he couldn't deny how he felt, however wrong he thought it should be. His first instinct had been to label himself with the lowest of the low, but he knew he would never make a move on Wally without consent and he was not interested in any other under-aged person on the planet.

…

There was something that said, within Bruce, that it was wrong to be sexually interested in someone he had watched grow up, mature into the young man he was now, but he didn't feel that way about any of the others he had mentored through Young Justice. That same part argued that fourteen years was too large an age gap, that they were worlds apart, and maybe that was true, but Bruce was Batman and he couldn't, didn't, let something go once it had caught his attention.

It made him curious. Curiosity killed the Bat, as the Joker was want to say, but it made him wonder just what was so intriguing about Wally West and every time he pondered the question, he came up with another answer.

…

Of course, being Batman, Bruce had noted and counted the number of freckles scattered across Wally's face the moment he had seen him without his Kid Flash uniform. It had only been recently that he had become inordinately fascinated with them. Never before had he considered them an attractive feature, let alone sexy, but since he had accepted that he wanted Wally, freckles had become almost a fetish. He had dreams; vivid, erotic, technicolour dreams where he had done nothing but count every freckle on Wally's body, with his tongue.

…

When Wally first realised that Bruce had more interest in him than just an older member of the Justice League looking out for a younger member he had stammered to a halt, verbally and physically and had flushed an interesting shade of red. Bruce had said nothing, but hadn't stopped that little, knowing smile curl one side of his lips up. Wally had gone redder and bolted.

…

When Wally had, for the first time, managed to keep eye contact with Bruce after he has insinuated something, he had still turned pink but he had smiled shyly too. Bruce's heart gave a lurch and then beat a little faster, making him positive it was audible to Wally.

…

It wasn't that Bruce couldn't love, that he felt he was incapable or that he didn't want to. What scared him most was tainting the pure shining heart of Wally. It saved everyone, when he smiled, when he made a bad joke, when he just stood beside you and laid a comforting hand on you for the briefest of seconds.

…

When Bruce finally made his move, when things spun out of control, something that only ever happened to the unflappable Batman when Wally was involved, Wally had gasped the cutest, yet sexiest, words against his lips ever.

"I've never… y'know… I mean… I've given myself… a… hand… but no one's… ever… with me…"

That didn't come as a surprise to Bruce. Wally had only turned legal everywhere in the world, bar Chad, Madagascar, Niger and those countries that considered what they were doing illegal, a few days ago and Bruce knew he obeyed the law. To hear it said though, did something to Bruce. It aroused him to know he would be Wally's first in everything and it touched something deep in his heart, knowing Wally trusted him to be his first.

…

Bruce stood in the doorway to his bedroom, pyjama bottoms riding low on his hips as he regarded Wally, sprawled, asleep in his bed. The silk sheets were pulled over him roughly, leaving one leg and most of his upper body exposed and he looked exquisitely beautiful. One hand lay across his stomach, rising and falling with his slow breaths and that red hair was bright against the white of the bedspread. Marring that smooth skin, even though Wally healed quickly, were bruises where Bruce had gotten a little rough and carried away over the course of the night, not that the younger man seemed to care. Bruce was also wearing some of his own and loved it.

"When did I get so lucky?"

"The day you let yourself admit you were allowed to love again," Alfred replied from behind him and Bruce turned around to find his oldest friend holding out a tray laden with breakfast. "I had my doubts occasionally sir, but I shall never have them again." With that he handed Bruce the tray and disappeared back down the corridor. Bruce smiled wanly, knowing it was true now, as he turned back into his room so he could set the tray down next to Wally and wake his most definitely hungry lover. He sat on the edge of the king sized bed, leant down, bracing one arm over Wally and kissed his lips,

"Good morning beautiful."

A pair of brilliant green eyes blinked up at him and then Wally smiled warmly, hand sneaking up to drag Bruce back down for another kiss, which lasted for a long minute. When Bruce sat back up, Wally had scooted back to lean against the pillows and asked, voice soft,

"Is it true, what Alfred said?"

Bruce felt all those years, all those moments where he had felt any sort of emotion regarding the man opposite crash down on him and it nearly robbed him of his breath. He couldn't say it, but Wally deserved something, so he pulled the slighter man to him and crushed their lips together. Wally made a little noise of helpless, wanton pleasure and wound his arms around Bruce neck. Those emotions that threatened to overwhelm Bruce, drown him in a sea he didn't know how to swim in, were beaten back and when he tore his mouth from Wally's he found the words he had longed to say spilling from his lips,

"Yes it's true. I love you."

"God, Bruce," Wally groaned, skin already flushed. "You don't know what that does to me."

Bruce couldn't help the smirk then, blue eyes glancing down Wally's body. "I think I do."

"Damn your detective skills," Wally cursed, face alive with laughter and happiness.

"You didn't say that last night when I was using them to detect what you liked me doing to you most," one of Bruce's hands slid slowly up Wally's leg, from ankle to thigh.

The red head let out a full body shiver, biting his lip in a way that Bruce found most sexy before he said, "Are you going to do more detecting now?"

"Before or after you've eaten?"

Wally glanced at the tray of food and then back at Bruce and announced loudly, "I love you." His stomach rapidly agreed and Bruce watched him eat, too busy floating on the cloud of euphoria at the sound of those words. He came down off his cloud, just a little, to use those famous detective skills as Wally had asked, once the food had been demolished. Bruce also fulfilled one of his own personal promises and counted every freckle on Wally's body, with his tongue.