Chapter Text
“There's definitely something wrong with me. I'm serious Kaldur.” Wally was pacing around in his apartment fidgeting with his hands as he always does. “I'm sick, or crazy, or something!”
Kaldur was sitting on the couch trying and failing to get Wally to chill for two seconds. “There's nothing wrong with you man, you should be honest with him about how you feel. You've got this. I promise.” He wanted to finish the video game they started and it had been ages since they had done anything together. “West, would you sit down, please?”
“I know, I know. I invited you over here just to freak out on you. I just keep thinking about him. Like all the time dude. It's like second nature at this point.” Wally wasn't even sure how he was feeling and frankly just wanted it all to stop.
“You know. I'm serious when I say it will help to just say how you feel. Sit down Wal.” Kaldur pauses the game, resigning himself to not actually ever finishing it.
Wally reluctantly sits down, he can feel his entire face glowing red. “I don't even know what this is man, and he's dating Kori anyways. I can't ruin our friendship. That would be cruel after everything we've been through.” He covers his face with his hands, tapping his foot and trying to find a way out of this that involves not telling Dick any of it.
“Kori and Dick broke up months ago. Did you not know that?” Kaldur moves to put a supportive hand on Wally's back, attempting to bring a little comfort to the ever growing embarrassment painted across Wally's face.
“What?! He didn't even tell me.” he shifts uncomfortably and visibly hurt by the fact that he wasn't told about this until now. He knows Dick has had a lot going on since becoming Nightwing but that wasn't an excuse to not be honest with his friends.
“I mean he loved her and it was a hard breakup. I can imagine not a lot of people knew. I figured it out because Kori stopped showing up to meetings for a hot minute so I asked Dick about it.”
Wally looked down at his feet. “Damn, I had no idea. I think I felt this way when we were kids too, as we grew up together. I know everything about him. It's crazy to think it's not new. I think I just missed it because of everything with my Dad.”
“Yeah it makes sense, but what do you mean by that? About your Dad.” Kaldur glances at him with a concerned look.
He sighs a little and takes a deep breath in before speaking. “I- Well, I think most of the team knows that I got abused when I was younger.”
“Yeah, you came to school with bruises man, that's why Dick asked if you were okay.”
“It happened before and a little after joining the team until Barry took me in. Dick actually is the one who helped me go to the school counselor about everything.”
“I mean he's always paid attention to the signs of that kind of thing. It makes sense he went with you.”
“Yeah, but the main reason I say all this is because I got hit for, according to my Dad, “acting like a sissy, a faggot, etc” you get the point. So I think I prolly just internalized it?” Tears start to form in the corner of his eyes. He pulls his legs to his chest and leans on the side of the couch trying to keep himself from crying.
“Wally, I had no idea about the details. I'm so sorry.” Kaldur puts his hand on Wally's shoulder and turns to face him. “Do you want to talk about what else he did? You don't have to if you don't want to, of course.”
“I really liked Superheroes as a kid, I always wanted to be one and as everyone knows I really liked The Flash. He was my hero but my Dad took that as me looking up to someone who wasn't him so he went through my room and made me burn all of my Flash memorabilia and toys. It was traumatizing and I didn't own any toys after that.”
“Jesus, did you tell Dinah about any of this when you joined Young Justice?”
He rubs his tears away and composes himself a bit more. “Oh absolutely not. I hated those stupid sessions and mostly doodled the whole time to get it over with. I fucking hated being forced to do them. I wasn't ready to talk about everything. It took a long time for me not to flinch when Dick yelled his commands for the team.”
“Oh that's what that was? I always thought you just weren't used to it.”
“Yeah haha no. They always startled me. I eventually got used to Dick being the way he was, trusting him with my life. I guess I never noticed it was more than that because I ignored it for fear of punishment or judgment from the other team members.” he puts his feet back down and continues to wipe the tears from his eyes and sniffles.
Kaldur gets up off the couch and shuffles Wally's hair and goes to grab some snacks in an attempt to lighten things up. “I can only imagine. I'm fairly certain he's going to take it just fine. He may even feel the same but if he doesn't I don't think it's going to mess anything up at all. Grayson is a hardass but a sweetheart. I'm sure you know that though. You were always closer with him.”
Wally follows him to the kitchen. “There's pop in the fridge if you'd like any. It's pretty good. But yeah no I'm just worried about it. I guess thats normal? Confessing your love to your best friend that is so debilitating that you lay awake at night, sad and horny”
“TMI on that last part West.” He grabs pop from the fridge and tosses it to Wally.
“Sorry, sorry it's just ugh!!” He grabs the pop and opens it, chugging some and sitting it on the counter. “I'M INSANE KAL, CRAZY!”
“I think the better term would be over dramatic” he slaps Wally's back in a friendly way and heads towards the door. “I've got to head on oceanic patrol because Aquaman is on vacation or something. But seriously you'll be fine. We had a bet you'd end up together anyway. Call me if you need anything, okay man?”
“Yeah, yeah I will! Have a good time on patrol broski thanks for being supportive as always, wait WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE?!” Kaldur flashes a grin and the door shuts. Wally gently falls to the floor and grabs his hair. “Oh god what am I doing? Seriously, what am I doing?”
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Wally decided to call Dick after thinking about what Kaldur had said. “This is stupid he's probably busy on patrol anyways” he's tapping his foot almost burning a hole in the carpet with the speed. “Please pick up Dick, please, please pick up.”
“Hello, this is Dick Grayson! Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, please leave a message if you need something!”
“Damn it, I knew he wouldn't pick up”
Wally gets up and heads to the bedroom. “Maybe sleeping will solve this, maybe everything will be done by the morning” He drifts off. Tossing and turning into the night.
DING DONG
“mph, what the-?” Wally rolls over sleepy and teary eyed. He gets up as fast as he can, checking the clock and changing his clothes. “It's like 3am, what the hell, oh my god I have like 30 missed calls from Grayson”
DING DONG
“I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!” Wally flings open the door to find Dick covered in blood holding onto his chest. “Oh my god, what the hell happened to you?”
He winces slightly in pain as he leans on the door frame. Wally knows he's desperately trying to downplay the severity of his injury. "It's just a small scrape, nothing too serious" he reassures with a small, pained smile.
“It's definitely not dude. You don't have to downplay it for me. I know what it's like" Wally holds him up and helps him get to the couch slowly. “Now tell me what happened?”
“It was just a simple patrol and it was quiet so I let my guard down. It was stupid. Really stupid” He coughs a little bit and blood drips from the corner of his mouth.
“It's gonna be okay, just give me a sec to grab the medical stuff” He quickly grabs some gauze, alcohol and some medical wrap. “Is it okay if I take this off?” He gestures to Dicks suit and he nods yes.
“Yeah, I'm sorry.” He winces as his suit is slowly but surely taken off revealing a pretty nasty chest wound.
“What are you sorry for?” Wally gives him a worried look as he starts to take care of the wound, cleaning, stuffing, and wrapping it up.
“It's just...I don't want you to worry about me, okay?” He glances up at Wally and just stares at him for a moment. It's a look riddled with guilt for having shown up here in the first place.
“I'm always going to worry Dick, just like how you do the same to me. It's always been that way.” He finishes up the dressing and heads to the bedroom to grab Dick a shirt. “Here, I should fit you it's one of yours from the last time you were over”
“and the one I've worn everyday I didn't hear from you”
“Thanks, I was wondering where that had gone.” He looks back at him, his eyes shining with gratitude. He reaches out and takes Wally’s hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. “But seriously thanks, I don't think I would have made it without you.”
Wally pulls away slowly “Uh yeah you're welcome dude. Anything for a fellow member of the team” He can feel himself blushing so he turns to head towards the kitchen. “Would you like something to eat? I know that patrol was rough on you.”
Dick pulls himself up on the couch to adjust and winces a little as he does. “Wall’s? Food can wait, why did you call me earlier?”
Wally is still turned around and he leans on the counter pretending to find something in the cabinet. “Oh nothing Kaldur and I were playing videogames and I wanted to see if you had an off day today.” He's desperately trying to keep it together.
“Wally, you could have texted me that, you only call when it's serious. What is going on? If you really don't want to talk that's fine of course but I know something is wrong you even pulled away when I touched you. Did your Dad try to call or something?”
“No, he didn't. Why didn't you tell me about you and Kori?”
“What? How did you-?”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Dick looks away from him, ashamed about everything that happened between him and Kori. “It's complicated, she wasn't exactly, I don't know. It was a lot and I wanted to keep it on the down low. Okay Walls? I'm sorry.”
“Sorry, I just, really thought you'd tell me about something like that.”
“No, just that. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It was a lot and-” He cuts himself off and starts to look really upset.
“It's okay, I'm sorry I was pushy.” He sighs and sits down next to Dick on the couch. Pretty far from him for it being a couch. Really far. Knees tucked away and arms on the rest. Glancing away.
“No, I should really be honest with someone about this.” He sits up, taking a deep breath.
“What do you mean?” Wally readjusts at the tone change, turning to look at him.
“The real reason we broke up. She obviously doesn't realize it and I know she didn't mean to be like that to me but she-” He stops, looking down.
“She what?” He gives a worried glance.
“Well, I got assaulted by another team member.” Dick is making sure not to give him any eye contact at this point. He's upset and exhausted.
“What?! Oh my god Dick. Did you tell someone?” He gets a little closer and reaches out before realizing that probably is a stupid idea in his fragile state. So he backs down, hands down.
Dick takes another breath. It's clear that this was traumatic and still is fresh for him. “No. Because it was Mirage, and sh-she pretended..pretended to be Kori. I didn't know until after. I tried to explain everything to Kori but she thought that I cheated on her. No one would believe me anyway.”
“I believe you Dick.” He puts out his hand and gestures “Is it okay if I touch you?”
“Yeah, of course.” Wally leans a hand out on him to try to comfort him. He's not sure wether he's angry or sad for his friend and isn't really sure how to make him feel better. He looks up at him. “I'm sorry no one stood with you.”
Dick starts to cry a little and he just looks at Wally tears forming. “ I just-Kori, just blamed me. Said I must have instigated it or something.”
“Really? Jesus christ. You didn't. You didn't do anything to deserve what happened, alright?” He puts his hands on Dicks for a moment. “Is there anything I can do? Do you want to talk about it more?”
“No, I'm okay. I've been talking through everything with my therapist. That's why I didn't think it would be necessary to tell anyone.”
“Understandable, again I really, I didn't mean to push it.” Wally looks to the side, frankly afraid he ruined a friendship simply by being pushy.
Can you just stay with me here tonight?” Dick pulls Wally a little bit closer trying not to undo any of his wounds and dressings in the process.
“Of course I can. Would you like something to make you feel better? Do you want a blanket and some choco or something?” He glances worryingly at him, noticing that his teary eyes have become tired ones.
“No, just you..I’m so tired. Can we just stay here to sleep?” He starts to play with Wally's hair as he drifts off. His injuries are too bad for him to handle much more emotionally.
“Yeah, of course man”
Wally just lays there. A little stunned, a bit numb. He feels bad for even mentioning the breakup. Rehashing all of that trauma in a single question. He'll ask if he overstepped in the morning but for now he'll just stay.
He'll just stay.