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“I know we spoke, at length, about the best way to keep your identities separate, chum,” Bruce started.
Dick thought he was about to preemptively break out into hives. He’d already had this exact, extremely one-sided conversation with Bruce a dozen or so times in the past week and a half. He turned slowly to look at Bruce. His attempt to not grimace at Bruce wasn’t very successful.
“But, I’ve been thinking. The playboy angle is a rough one for stability—”
Oh god. Dick was pretty sure it was literally a memorized script. Which was, unfortunately, really on brand for Bruce. He was always so worried about making mistakes, perfectly normal and acceptable mistakes, that he worked himself up and ended up making completely odd mistakes that were entirely avoidable.
Did he have to sound like an overpowered videogame boss whose spiel was repeated so often that the player had it memorized? No. No, he really didn’t.
“—and you deserve stability. You deserve a proper relationship and the chance to settle down. The constant partying and the pre-planned dates tend to be wearisome after a while, I know, and I’m sorry I had you continue this for so long—”
“You don’t have to worry,” Dick interrupted. He was already internally screaming, floundering as he tried to figure out the best thing to say that would get Bruce off his back. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been dating people...”
“Dating around isn’t quite the kind of thing I meant. I mean real stability, the chance to make a proper connection, settle down, maybe have a few kids. Or adopt a few kids. Or a dog, if you prefer,” Bruce said. He looked like he’d mentally flipped from his original script to some secondary script that he had also memorized, just in case this other topic happened to come up.
Dick dreaded to think about exactly how many scripts Bruce had memorized. Was this Dick’s personal hell? A Choose Your Own Adventure of pre-memorized scripts that Bruce had designed to help him get through an emotional conversation with minimal impact on his lack of emotional depth?
“I have a boyfriend!” Dick tried.
His brain made an extended warning beep, like Dick was reaching the point of no return. He ignored it.
“Dating around isn’t quite the kind of thing I meant—” Bruce started, again. Just. Literally the same exact line.
Dick was probably lucky he wasn’t getting this in PowerPoint format.
“We’ve been dating almost a year, now. I just haven’t gotten around to bringing him to dinner because I wasn’t really sure if it would last, then I was putting it off, then I let myself worry about what you all might think,” Dick babbled. He felt his voice getting higher and higher, almost making his words into a question.
“You... have.”
“Yeah! And I was still trying to hold the whole ‘Richie’ thing down. I know we’ve been pulling back on that, for a while, so that I could do, like, volunteering and stuff at the community center, but I didn’t know if it was the right time to try and introduce a significant other into things, you know?”
“Right,” Bruce floundered.
Incredibly, Dick seemed to have hit a topic that Bruce hadn’t pre-prepared a speech for.
“Who is he?” Bruce asked.
“What?”
“Who is he? Do we know him?” Bruce motioned, vaguely, at the rest of the house, trying to encompass the family with one awkward, stilted motion.
“Uh. Um, y-yeah?” Dick scuffed his shoe against the stairs’ carpet runner. “Yeah. I think. Yeah.”
--
Dick was a fool to think that Bruce would have just let it go at that, let’s be honest.
He narrowly dodged every question about his apparent long-term boyfriend (that he didn’t have), but Bruce was starting to enlist the others. And they were all very interested in who, exactly, was able to keep the serial dater from fleeing at the slightest sign of commitment.
“It can’t be Babs,” Jason said.
Dick squeaked and almost fell off the fire escape he’d been hiding from Bruce on. Never mind that he was hiding from Bruce on the fire escape right outside his own apartment. Yeah, yeah, it was his apartment and he could just ask Bruce to leave. But that meant facing Bruce and Dick just wasn’t about that, in light of the current topic of the hour. That being his dating life.
Anyway, Dick squeaked and almost fell off the fire escape.
Jason snorted at him. “Right? You told B that you had a boyfriend, didn’t you?”
“What of it?” Dick stood and awkwardly dusted himself off, then leaned up against the brick, on the other side of the window into his apartment. Bruce wouldn’t be able to see either Dick or Jason, from inside the apartment.
“Can’t be Babs. Can’t be Kori,” Jason was actually counting off on his fingers. Of course. “Can’t be Bea, Shawn, Helena, Zatanna, Bette, Raquel—”
“I get it, Jason, I’ve dated a lot of girls—”
“That’s just the girls in the hero community or just adjacent to it,” Jason pointed out.
“Uh, no? Not Bea.”
“Sue me, I consider her knowing your secret ID the same as her being vigilante or vigilante adjacent,” Jason shrugged. “And on the other side, you’ve got Clancy, that Raya chick that tried to kill you or whatever, Vicky, Sonia, Sandy, Emily—”
“Emily?!”
“Cases count. You almost fuckin’ eloped because you felt bad.”
“That wasn’t what—”
“Cases count!” Jason said, louder.
There was a beat of silence between them.
“Do you have a point, Jay?” Dick huffed and did his most dramatic, full-body eye-roll.
“I’m not nearly done. We’ve cleared that it’s not a girl, because you called them your boyfriend. But it’s also not Tiger, Roy, Garth, Will, Vic, Luke, Jim—what is it with you and Harpers, by the way?—, And you didn’t say boy friends so it’s not the sunny one and the cowled asshole...”
“Jason, please,” Dick ran his hands over his face. He was more than aware of how many people he’d dated in the last few years, alone.
“Didn’t you have that fling with Zatanna’s cousin?”
“No! Noooo,” Dick whined. “I didn’t!”
“Okay, damn, calm down. I didn’t realize you felt that strongly about Zachary, fuck.”
“Klarion would have turned me into a toaster! You realize that, right? I’d be a toaster if I even thought about it. Why does everyone think I slept with him?”
“Oh, so it’s another threesome situation—”
“No!”
Jason snickered at him. “So, it’s none of them. Like. Unless you decided to go back to your on-again, off-again bullshit, like you were on with Babs, way back, it’s gotta be someone new. And probably someone from your friend circle, since you got those fancy, Bat-patented trust issues, too. So...” Jason nodded to himself, clearly going through a mental list. “It’s gotta be Wally, right?”
“What?”
“Yeah, that makes the most sense. He’s got red hair and everything. You go all fucking dick-for-brains around redheads.”
“I...” Dick started, then stopped and thought about it. Actually. If things got out of hand, Wally probably wouldn’t have too hard a time pretending to date Dick for a bit, would he?
“Yeah, and he gets those shitty doe eyes whenever you’re not looking. Lookin’ like some kind of lost puppy until your attention is back,” Jason continued to nod. “From what Roy says, it’s always been like that, anyway.”
“Well, that’s wrong,” Dick disagreed. Not least because he was pretty sure Wally was straight, and it was kind of weird that the gossip mill hadn’t relayed that to Jason. “He doesn’t get doe eyes at me, Jason.” He thought back through the conversation a bit. “Wait. How could you possibly be sure it’s not Roy? I’ve dated him like three times.”
Jason glanced over, frowning. “Ew.”
“Jason, how do you know it’s not Roy?” Dick repeated, a bit firmer.
Jason scowled at him.
“Oh my god. Imma kill him."
"You've dated older guys before, you don't get to judge!" Jason snapped. He crossed his arms tightly. “Didn’t you have a fling with fuckin’ Deathstroke at some point?”
Dick opened his mouth and... realized he couldn’t actually deny that, so instead he made a face and hunched his shoulders a bit. “I haven’t always made the best decisions,” he said, diplomatically.
“He’s older than Bruce.”
Dick made a face.
“Yeah. Yeah, Dick. Imagine how the rest of us feel,” Jason scoffed. “But I’m right, aren’t I? It’s Wally.”
“Jason...”
“Dude, I fucking called it. Not like it wasn’t obvious, though.” Jason stepped away from the brick and put his Red Hood helmet back on, then readied a grapple gun. “B’s gonna make you introduce him at sometime, childhood best friend or no.”
“It’s not—”
Jason departed, as dramatically as he could manage.
“—like that,” Dick repeated. He hated his family sometimes. Like, in that family-hate kind of way, though. Not actual hate. He wouldn’t trade the mess he called “family” for anything.
--
Dick managed to dodge more questions about his nonexistent significant other for the next few days. And then found himself cornered by Tim and Steph.
“Is he like a vibrator?” Steph asked.
Tim whacked her. “Stop it!”
“Look, ever since I saw Barry vibrate through that wall, I’ve been wondering! Because, please, that would be such a useful skill for your boyfriend to have!” Steph whacked him back, then blew an obnoxiously large bubble out of her elecric blue bubble gum.
“I’m sorry, what?” Dick raised both eyebrows.
“Wally! He vibrates, right?” Steph asked. She snapped her gum and tilted her head to the side. “But is he like a vibrator? Does he have that kind of, like, control? Or would he just go through the floor or something?”
“I’m not discussing the possible applications of speedster abilities to sex with my baby siblings,” Dick furrowed his brow and slowly covered his ears. Then stopped and dropped his hands. “Wait. Why would I even know that? I know we’re close, but it’s not like I’m gonna just ask—”
“Jay said you’re boning him,” Steph interrupted.
“That’s most certainly not what Jason said,” Tim disagreed.
Steph nodded. “Right, sorry. Jay said that he’s boning you.” She smiled sweetly.
“Your whole mouth is blue, Steph,” Dick said. His mind was empty except for what sounded suspiciously like a fax machine tone. He had never in his life thought of Wally like...! Okay, that wasn’t true. But they’d literally been friends through puberty and Dick had a lot of weird thoughts, around the time. Of course Wally guest starred once or twice. That was so not the point.
“I just want to know why you’ve been hiding it,” Tim murmured.
Dick glanced over at him.
Wow, Steph was a lot taller than Tim, today... oh. Dick glanced at her feet and found six-inch platform stilettos, probably stolen from Tim. Dick returned his attention to Tim. “Hiding what?”
“That you’re dating Wally.”
Dick wasn’t dating Wally, so he nodded very slowly as he tried to come up with a noncommittal, neutral response to that. Just in case he needed to call in a favour with Wally, later, to get his family off his back a bit more definitively.
“I know you usually have pretty short relationships. Were you worried it wouldn’t last? Bruce said he thought you mighta been,” Tim said.
“I mean,” Dick shrugged awkwardly.
“But after you reached a few months, why wouldn’t you bring him around and show him off a bit?” Steph propped her hands on her hips. Actually, her blouse was probably stolen from Tim’s closet, too. Maybe it was a “dress up in Tim’s nice clothes” kind of day. Which meant Cass would probably be around, somewhere, wearing one of the many nice dresses Tim just didn’t have enough excuses to break out.
“I guess we... didn’t think it was necessary,” Dick rubbed the back of his neck and forced himself back to the topic at hand.
“Are you afraid we’ll scare him off?” Steph asked.
“I don’t think any of you could—it’s Wally,” Dick said.
Tim frowned at Dick for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Then why haven’t you brought him around? If you’re not afraid that your family will scare him off or something, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Dick shrugged weakly.
“You should bring him around,” Steph said.
“Yeah,” Tim agreed.
“Yeah,” Dick echoed. He gave a nervous laugh and slipped away.
--
A few days after that, Damian managed to corner him. Dick was ready to bolt, because he absolutely wasn’t going to answer any questions that were remotely The Talk-related. Which wasn’t just a random fear. Every other time Damian had cornered him, for the last month and a half, he’d had a very matter-of-fact question about Health class.
Apparently, that was Dick’s weakness: his little brother asking him something about sexual intercourse. Because, seriously. He couldn’t do it. He’d dove out a window, last time.
“Grayson,” Damian said.
“Dames!” Dick started to search for exits.
“Father has informed me that your invitation required amendment before delivery. I have, therefore, elected to bring yours to you after it was so amended.”
“Oh,” Dick relaxed a bit. And then frowned again. “Wait, what invite?”
“The annual Wayne Valentine’s Charity Gala is – as is the accepted colloquial idiom– ‘just around the corner.’”
“Right.” Damian managed to give Dick the invitation without Dick being aware that he’d accepted said invitation. He looked down at it and, you know, he would probably never get used to the gilded stationary or pristine, calligraphic lettering of the recipient's name. “Why did it need to be amended?”
Damian’s posture stiffened. “To include,” he clenched his jaw in distaste, “allowance for the inclusion of your paramour.”
“My... right,” Dick lowered the invitation slowly.
“Or have you broken up with the metahuman?” Damian asked.
He looked a little too pleased, in Dick’s opinion, so he let himself be dumb. Again. “No, of course not. I just have to make sure he’s available, is all.”
Damian smirked at him.
Shit.
“I am sure Father will look forward to his attendance,” Damian said.
--
“Okay, wait, go back,” Wally glanced up from the invite. “First of all, is this seriously gold leaf? On a fucking invite?” He waved the invitation at Dick. “And is there gold in the ink? This is the bougiest, most wasteful rich-person shit I’ve seen in a while. And I watch shitty reality shows when I’m bored.”
“It’s Valentine’s, I don’t know what to tell you. Bruce goes all-out on the Valentine’s Charity Gala. Invites and all. But if it makes you feel better, it’s not actually a lot of gold—”
“But it’s actually gold.”
“Yeah? Gold leaf is pretty common, you can get a book of it for like twenty bucks on Amazon, it’s not that big of a deal, actually,” Dick said. “And it’s less than a micrometer thick. Like.” He pinched his fingers close together. “Super thin, dude.
“I... am actually surprised you knew all that off the top of your head,” Wally laughed. “But, I mean. Still. Gilded invitations? That’s some rich person bullshit, right there, come on.”
Dick shrugged.
Wally sat up properly and set his drink aside. “Okay. So, bougie invite aside. Let’s go over this again, huh?”
Dick sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “Do we have to?”
“So, your dad was trying to do his thing, but you panicked in the middle of it and told him that you – current Single Pringle extraordinaire – are already dating someone and didn’t need to be told that you should be allowed to make connections and stuff? Why did this turn into you dating someone? I don’t get it.”
“He was trying to tell me it was okay to drop the playboy, party animal schtick,” Dick shrugged, a bit at a loss. “Which, I mean. Why didn’t he just say that? He had his whole choose-your-own-adventure thing going on, where he had like ten speeches memorized, trying to account for all eventualities. I just wanted him to stop, man.”
“Okay. And being in a relationship did it?”
“I guess,” Dick shrugged again.
“Okay, and then there’s the whole...” Wally’s smile tightened around the edges as he tried to hold in a laugh. He motioned between himself and Dick. “Us, right? You n’ me.”
Dick whined, too embarrassed to dignify that with a dignified response.
“How’d you get there? To, ya know, us? Not that I’m trying to pick on you or anything, I just wouldn’t have expected that.”
“Jason ruled everyone else out,” Dick said.
“Oh, ouch, last resort, then?” Wally laughed.
“No, I mean,” Dick sighed. “He listed off like half my exes—”
“Wow, that’s a lot of people to remember.”
“I hate you.”
Wally snickered.
“He listed off a bunch of my exes, telling me it couldn’t be them, gave it a beat, then surmised it had to be you. I just didn’t... correct him. I didn’t really think to go that far into the cover! But then he mentioned you and I thought—”
“‘Oh, yeah, the last redhead I haven’t dated’?”
Dick snorted. “I thought you might be willing to cover for me if it got bad.”
“Okay, so I wasn’t far off.”
“And then Tim was like. He thought I was ashamed of the family or that you’d be scared of the family or something, and that put me on the defense, so if just got worse! And then Damian with the invite and the-the affected derogatory referencing, tricking me into confirming our ‘relationship’ and all that.” Dick scrubbed a hand through his hair, then shook it out as his fingers slipped through the tousled, borderline tangled tresses. “I just haven’t been dating. But apparently that’s just a sign that I’m trying to keep my cover. So, instead, I apparently came up with an elaborate cover! I’m such a moron!”
“Whoa, hey, that’s my friend you’re talking about.”
Dick rolled his eyes. “So?”
“So?” Wally echoed.
Dick turned back to him, hands propped on his hips. “You willing to play boyfriend for a night?”
“The whole night?” Wally waggled his eyebrows.
Dick snorted, then tried to go back to his serious expression. “Stop that. This is serious, Walls.”
“Yeah, sure. Anything for you, man. Just didn’t expect ’anything’ to include buddy-buddy handholding and PDA. Strike that, romantic buddy-buddy handholding and PDA. But I don’t think I have a suit or anything, so unless you want me showing up like a slob, I probably need to fix that.”
“I’ll deal with it,” Dick said.
“Oh?” Wally raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you’re doing me a huge favour, just going. I’ll deal with the suit and everything. Not like it’s even a big deal.”
“You know... I could get used to this.”
“To what?”
“Being a sugar baby. Just,” Wally fanned himself theatrically. “I need a suit. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ That’s both hot and convenient.”
“Oh my god,” Dick laughed.
--
Wally’s hand was on the small of his back as they entered the huge event space was a solid, grounding presence. Just like the solid thereness of Wally, beside him.
The event space was decked out for the Valentine’s Charity Gala.
There were red and gold foil balloons, vases of red roses interspersed with gold-dipped roses and baby’s breath, black tablecloths dotted with constellations of red plastic heart confetti, and so on and so forth. The whole place was filled with the usual Wayne Gala guest types. So, mostly stuffy upper-crust types who liked to throw around their wallets and checkbooks to show how good and rich they were. But mostly rich.
Off in one corner, Jason and Roy were huddled in close. Apparently, Dick agreeing to bring his “significant other” was reason enough to poke and prod at least Jason into doing the same. But Tim had been bringing Conner (and Bart and Cassie) to these things since before he and Conner were actually dating, so there was probably a Tim-and-Conner, Conner-and-Tim dynamic duo somewhere.
“Wow, nice place,” Wally said.
Dick turned and headed for the hors d’oeuvres and drinks. They were always in the same place, or roughly the same place, from gala to gala. It was either because Bruce was a creature of habit, or because Bruce realized that a bit of familiarity could go a long way in making some people more comfortable. And, you know, being able to quickly and easily finding the snacks was pretty rad.
There was a huge charcuterie board of cheeses and accompaniments, all of varying flavour profiles and price points, and all invariably ten times as fancy as strictly necessary.
There was also heart-shaped bruschetta, little miniature caprese in phyllo cups with mozzarella cropped into hearts, devilled eggs, something polenta and mushroom based with fontina cheese on it (Dick didn’t like fontina cheese—he thought sharp cheeses were more appealing), relish trays and pickle trays, some kind of mini meatball, some kind of pigs in a blanket that the staff were trying very hard to pretend weren’t pigs in a blanket, little heart-shaped garlic bread bites, little heart-shaped crostini, and a bunch of little toasts with varying toppings (all with their own neat little labels). The toasts were, of course, also heart-shaped.
“That’s a lot of food,” Wally muttered.
“Yep, B goes all out for Valentine’s parties,” Dick agreed.
Over on the dessert side of things, there were tiny heart-shaped cakes, heart-shaped brownies and blondies, heart-shaped cookies dusted in red glitter-sugar, red velvet cupcakes, fruit salad, cheesecake stuffed strawberries, chocolate-dipped and drizzled strawberries, heart-shaped cake pops, little mousse cups, tiny tiramisus, little heart-shaped flans, little balls of cheesecake, sugarplums, heart-shaped chocolates, Hershey kiss chocolates, heart-shaped chocolate peanut butter cups, and an assortment of heart-shaped lollipops from some obscure, small-batch candy maker.
“Wow,” Wally muttered.
“Yeah, I’ll make sure some of the leftovers go home with you. Least I can do to thank you for coming with me, right?” Dick turned to smile over his shoulder at Wally, and briefly caught Bruce’s eye from near the center of the room as he did so.
Dick quickly dropped his gaze to the hors d’oeuvres tables, because they were still hors d’oeuvres, in spite of the sheer amount of variety there was. Except maybe the charcuterie, relish, and pickle trays, which weren’t quite normal “hors d’oeuvres” fare, simply in that a charcuterie board, at least, wasn’t a tray of homogeneous snacks that a waiter could carry around the room, the way the heart-shaped bruschetta and crostini were.
“’s wrong, babe?” Wally asked.
The nickname sent a pleasant little shiver down Dick’s spine. Which. Was a bit weird. “No, nothing. I mean. Just Bruce,” Dick smiled up at Wally, again, this time avoiding Bruce’s gaze. “Wanna fill a plate of snacks, while we’re over here? I’m gonna grab some strawberry champagne.”
“Ooh, fancy,” Wally said.
“The only way I get through these, sometimes,” Dick laughed.
Wally gave him a worried little smile, but let it go.
--
The gala dragged on.
And on.
And on.
There were speeches, a silent auction, near-constant band music (usually played quite low, but also there for the designated dancefloor area, in general), and an absolutely endless stream of the most boring conversations Dick would put up with until the next Wayne Gala.
“Oh, I thought for sure you’d settle down with that Gordon girl,” one woman was saying.
Dick gave ger the most incredulous smile he could muster, because he was standing right there. With Wally. Right in front of her. And she was going to talk about an ex of his? And she was going to talk about how she thought he was going to marry that ex? That seemed super inconsiderate, at best, and outright rude at worst. Maybe even borderline hostile, in spite of her oblivious smile.
Wally laughed and stepped the slightest bit closer, though, his arm around Dick. “I got lucky,” he said.
The woman laughed with him, as if they were sharing a joke. As if she hadn’t just insinuated that she didn’t really think Dick and Wally belonged together...!
And, sure, it wasn’t like the two of them were really together, no matter how comfortable they were inside each other's personal bubbles. But still. She didn’t know that. And Dick kind of resented the implication, accidental though it might have been, that Wally wasn’t as good as Babs, or as acceptable of a partner. (He’d met Janet Drake, though, so he knew it could be an entirely purposeful “accident,” too.)
Babs was great, of course. But he hadn’t been with Babs in ages, there was no reason for anyone at this stupid gala to think he’d be back with her, especially after the long list of other people he’d dated between Babs and Wally. Not that he was... dating... Wally.
Whatever.
Dick zoned back into the conversation, which he’d been nodding his way vaguely through, up until that point. Though he didn’t zone back in due to anything said, or directed toward him. Wally dropped a kiss on top of his head.
Part of Dick felt miffed at the attention Wally brought to their height difference when he did shit like that. The rest of Dick was shocked and warmed all the way to his toes by the unexpected show of affection. He melted against Wally’s side in response, smiling to himself.
Of course, the woman could see the private smile on Dick’s face.
“Oh, I see,” she said, all knowingly. “Poor girls, losing a looker like you to the other side.” She clicked her tongue. She probably didn’t think that people could be anything but straight or gay.
Dick didn’t think educating her would be worth the time, so he just smiled and shrugged.
And then Bruce was sweeping in, on the rescue. “Hello, Veronica,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I would like to have a moment of my son’s time, and my son’s young gentleman, of course.” He smiled charmingly and managed to disentangle Dick and Wally from the woman’s presence with, frankly, offensive efficiency, in comparison to how long Dick and Wally were stuck there.
“Wally, I didn’t know you could clean up so well,” Bruce said.
“Oh, well. You know. Dick’s handiwork, mostly,” Wally grinned over at Bruce. “What would I do without him?”
Wally really was a perfect cover and it shouldn’t have taken Jason mentioning Wally for Dick to think of asking for his help with the whole mess. It really, really shouldn’t have.
Bruce eyed Wally with a mild look. “What indeed.”
“We’ve talked, he’s going to be my kept man,” Dick joked. “I’ll shower him with nice things, he’ll smile at me a bit and make life that much more manageable with how pretty he is.”
Bruce snorted and turned to look at Dick, instead. “Is that so?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a sugar daddy,” Dick said. He almost managed to make it sound completely serious, too. Almost. But it was more than a bit ridiculous sounding, of course.
Wally smiled over at Dick again.
There had to be something wrong with him to have such blatant physical reactions to Wally’s smile, like the shock of warmth that travelled all the way down to his toes and suffused pleasantly through his body. Except that Dick wasn’t entirely oblivious, like his siblings liked to believe. He was just late in catching apparent crush symptoms. On Wally. His best friend.
Wally, his best friend... who may have been straight.
“I think I’d make a pretty good sugar baby,” Wally said agreeably. “I’m very good at wearing things that Dick buys for me.”
Well, that was the truth. Dick glanced Wally over, briefly and. Yeah. Wally showed a real talent for looking unfairly good in suits. And it didn’t hurt that it was a gift from Dick... which was a little possessive for a thought about his best friend.
--
The rest of the gala went by in a kind of haze. Dick mostly paid attention to Wally, the occasional sibling, and the strawberry champagne. Wally kept getting more and more hors d’oeuvres, which Dick enthusiastically helped and encouraged him in (partly because he wondered how long it would take for someone to realize that he and Wally were almost singlehandedly clearing entire portions of the spread of food).
Jason and Roy stayed mostly antisocial in their corner the whole time. Tim said the briefest hello with, as predicted, Conner near at hand. Cassie and Bart ran into Wally at the hors d’oeuvres table a few times. Jon and Damian snuck out barely halfway through it all. Cass was resplendent in a dress stolen from Tim’s closet. Steph was on her arm, just as resplendent, but in a suit stolen from Tim and adjusted suitably by the family tailor.
By the end of the night, Dick was a little depressed that he’d started the fake dating charade with Wally, because he’d managed to stumble on the realization that he didn’t actually want it to end. Which Wally proceeded to notice after running Dick back to Dick’s Blüdhaven apartment.
“What’s with the long face, dude?” Wally set Dick down, outside his door, then patted down his own pockets because, naturally, he had a spare key to Dick’s apartment.
Dick leaned against the wall beside his door, sighing, and didn’t even bother to look for his own key. Wally had that handled.
“Wally, you only date girls, right?”
“Hm? No?” Wally looked over at him with an amused smile.
“No?”
“No. Why?”
Dick hummed to himself, brow furrowed. “Why didn't I know that?”
“You never asked, dumbass,” Wally unlocked the door and swung it open.
“Oh.” Dick said. A ball of jealousy tangled in his stomach unpleasantly. “You’ve dated guys?”
“Yeah, sure,” Wally said.
“Who?”
Wally glanced at Dick, again, this time with an unreadable look, caught somewhere between thoughtful and knowing, maybe. “Why?”
Why. Hm. Dick opened and closed his mouth, then let Wally take him by the wrist and pull him into the newly unlocked apartment. “Why not?” he tried.
Wally nudged the door closed and turned his attention back to Dick. He was unnecessarily amused by the whole conversation, which Dick thought was a bit unfair. And confusing. “What? So you can get all green-eyed-monster about it, when there’s no point?”
“Why would I be jealous?”
“I dunno, you tell me, dude,” Wally smirked at him.
Dick felt annoyingly seen-through. He huffed and glanced away from Wally. He glanced back. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you weren’t straight?”
“I thought it was obvious?” Wally laughed.
“I told you I was pan,” Dick said.
“Mmhm?” Wally nodded. “I thought you already knew I was bi. I didn’t realize you somehow still didn’t know. Again, I thought I was being pretty obvious.”
“Obvious with being bi?”
“With... being interested,” Wally looked like he had the phantom of frustration about him, but that he’d wrangled it into exasperated amusement at some point, over the years of experiencing that specific emotion. “Dude, we’ve been flirting for over ten years.”
Dick opened his mouth, blue-screened a bit, then closed his mouth.
“I always underestimate how oblivious you can be about interpersonal stuff,” Wally sighed. He crossed his arms and leaned up against the wall, just inside Dick’s apartment door. “It’s fine, but man, you kept dating redheads n’ shit. The amount of times I hoped I could maybe at least try for a chance at you is kind of sad.”
“What? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I mean, you always seemed to be in a relationship, or sad after getting out of one. It was never the right time. You didn’t need someone asking you out, ya know? You needed a friend, and I’m perfectly happy if that’s all I ever am.” Wally nodded to himself. “I mean. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” that felt like some kind of opportunity.
“Well,” Wally glanced at Dick, then away, smiling bashfully. “Can’t say it’s not a bit of a shame to miss out on some of the less platonic things. Ya know?”
“Like what? Cuddling? Hand-holding?” Dick laughed. Not because he didn’t think those were “less platonic” things, mind you, but because those were things he and Wally had always been entirely comfortable doing with each other.
Hell, Dick had kissed Wally on a dare. Easiest five bucks he’d ever made off Roy, too.
“I mean, some of your exes are gossips,” Wally flushed a bit, but continued to smile. He shrugged.
“Gossips?” Dick tilted his head. He processed for a moment, then felt himself flush a bit red, too. “Oh my god,” he hid his face in his hands. “Kori! Fuck!”
“I mean, sure. But also Roy. And Zee, Raquel, Will—”
“Will isn’t a gossip!” Dick dropped his hands. “That has to be slander.”
“He talks to Artemis? Artemis is a huge gossip – don’t tell her I said so – and she talks to me...”
Dick slapped his hands back to his face and groaned.
There was a pause. Then: “But mostly Kori.”
Dick whined, though he was also laughing. “No! I knew it!”
“She really appreciated some of your, uh, tricks. And wanted to share?” Wally offered.
“I hate everything, right now.”
“Sorry,” Wally laughed.
Dick groaned again, then took a deep breath and dropped his hands from his face. “All good things, I hope,” he deadpanned.
Wally turned an interesting shade of red. “Oh, uh. For sure.”
Dick raised his eyebrows. “Oh.” He felt vaguely flattered at Wally’s reaction, if still a bit peeved to have his “performance” apparently have been the source of inter-team gossip on multiple occasions. He put that aside, though, and smiled, slowly. “That good, huh? So that’s what you think it’s a shame to ‘miss out’ on?”
Wally went a bit more red, still, somehow. He probably matched his other suit (as in, not the fancy gala suit he was wearing). “I mean.” He shrugged weakly.
Dick edged closer, head tilted and smile widening. “Anything in particular?”
“Ah,” Wally’s eyes flickered from Dick’s eyes to his mouth, then back. He laughed in what was probably an attempt to sound less embarrassed. It didn’t work. “No. I mean. Not. In particular.”
“You’re not very good at lying,” Dick said. “Come on, we tell each other everything, don’t we?” Except, apparently, that Wally had dated guys. Not that Wally hid it. Dick knew he could be remarkably oblivious in some situations; it was pretty likely he’d just missed that whole... whatever.
"You know how much I hate being on the spot,” Wally said.
“Well, I mean. Seems like you’ve thought about it. That’s not really being put on the spot, is it?” Dick stepped inside Wally’s personal space. Even slouched against the wall, Wally was still a good bit taller than Dick, which was kind of offensive, honestly. Sometimes. There was an appeal of pulling taller people down into kisses, though, that Dick would never get over.
“Man, I can’t keep up with you,” Wally laughed, a touch breathless. Or anxious.
Dick wavered on the spot, then took a step back, in case it was the latter.
“In a good way,” Wally amended. “I just... never expect how fast you get from one thing to another, or from one idea to another.”
“Remember when Roy offered us each five bucks if we followed through on a dare?” the question was apropos nothing, other than Dick’s earlier thoughts.
“Yeah, you kissed me before he was done talking,” Wally snorted.
“Best five-dollar tacos I’ve ever had,” Dick said.
Wally laughed again, “Yeah, you like showing people up.”
“But we should kiss,” Dick said. He couldn’t quite follow his own line of logic, but whatever.
“Oh,” Wally considered Dick for a moment, head tilted.
“I mean, unless—”
“That’s the other thing—”
“Sorry, you can,” Dick motioned. “Go first.”
“That’s it. It’s, uh, the other thing. That I’d be sad to miss out on, I mean. Kissing,” Wally gave a slow, embarrassed shrug. Something like his hundredth shrug, it felt like.
Dick’s heart leapt a little. “So, that would be okay?” he checked.
Wally laughed, the embarrassment bleeding out of him to be replaced by a soft, sentimental look. He leaned off the wall and put a hand on the side of Dick’s face, cradling his jaw and sweeping the pad of his thumb along his cheek.
Dick wet his lips as a jitter of anticipation ran through his system.
Wally’s smile softened further, somehow, then he leaned in.
As apparent by his list of exes, Dick had dated around quite a bit. He’d done a lot of kissing. Maybe there was something about the edge of static electricity and storm-adjacent ozone, or maybe it was just Wally, but kissing Wally was different. It always had been, given how well Dick remembered that decade-old dare.
And it was over way too soon.
Granted, that was an easy fix. Dick rolled onto his tiptoes to reconnect the kiss, hands clinging to the lapels on Wally’s suit jacket, not even a second after Wally broke away. He pressed into Wally, pushing him back against the wall. Wally’s hand slid to the back of Dick’s neck, his other hand found purchase on Dick’s hip, under the suit jacket.
--
“So,” Jason dropped down into the chair across from the couch Tim had laid claim to.
Tim barely glanced at him before returning his attention to his tablet. Conner, who had Tim tucked into his side and an arm draped across the back of the couch, gave Jason a lazy wave, though. “’So’ what?” Tim asked.
“Dick and Wally, huh?”
“Mm, you baited him,” Tim shrugged.
“Mmhm.”
A remarkably comfortable silence stretched between them.
Jason shifted it, breaking the spell. “How long you think it’ll take the dumbasses to go from fake dating to actual dating?”
Conner snorted.
“Oh, we’ll probably get wedding invites before they figure out how to end the charade,” Tim scoffed. He rolled his eyes and glanced at Jason over his glasses. “Either that or Dick, who has a pretty hard time keeping it in his pants according to some of his previous datemates, will end up jumping Wally.”
“Twenty says it’s the fake dating to fake wedding,” Jason said.
“Oh, for sure,” Tim agreed. He looked back down at the tablet. “But just for the fun of it, I’ll bet twenty on them getting their shit together because one of them jumps the other.”
“Oh, really? By when?”
“Within the week. Dick isn’t patient. Wally isn’t patient. One of them will break.”
Steph skidded into the room, behind the couch. “Are you guys taking bets on people’s love lives without me?! I’m offended!”
Tim sighed. “I’ll start the betting pool, I guess.” He minimized his work to draw up a spreadsheet. “Someone tell the groupchat there’s a new pool to get in on, I guess.”