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The mission ends clean.
That’s what everyone says, anyway.
Dick knows how to read a room. He knows the way shoulders loosen once the adrenaline drains, the way voices get louder and jokes get worse as everyone collectively realizes they’re still alive. He plays his part easily—laughing at Wally’s terrible impression, tossing out a quip of his own, clapping someone on the back as they file out of the transport.
He doesn’t stop moving. That’s the most important part.
Stillness is dangerous. Stillness is where his brain gets loud, where the replay starts stuttering to life whether he wants it to or not. As long as he’s in motion—pacing, talking, doing—he can stay half a step ahead of it.
By the time the Tower settles into its familiar nighttime hush, Dick has paced the length of the common area three times over. And then some, probably. He tells himself he’s just burning off energy. Leftover adrenaline. Normal hero shit. Except his hands won’t quite stop shaking, and his thoughts keep skipping over the same three seconds of a near-miss he shouldn’t even be thinking about like a scratched record.
He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, downs half of it while he looks for… something, then promptly forgets what he’s looking for in the first place.
“Hey.”
Wally’s voice lands softly, like it’s been aimed not to startle. Dick pivots, the smile snapping into place before he’s even fully conscious of it.
“Hey yourself,” he says, and god, his voice sounds too bright, even to him. His nose almost wrinkles. “Did you see that last move? I swear, if Bruce had been watching, I’d actually get a ‘good job’. Maybe even without a lecture attached.”
Wally doesn’t smile back, not really. His eyebrows quirk up and his gaze drifts downward to Dick’s white-knuckled grip on the water bottle before traveling back up to track the minute twitch of Dick’s jaw. Wally’s eyes are always too sharp for Dick’s peace of mind. He tries to laugh, but it comes out embarrassingly choked.
“Yeah,” Wally says, stepping into Dick’s space. “You okay, Rob?”
“Peachy.” Dick gestures vaguely with the water bottle. The plastic crinkles loudly enough for it to feel awkward. “Mission went great. Everyone’s fine. No disasters. A win all around.”
He manages the laugh on the second time, but it comes out too loud.
Wally doesn’t call him out on it. Instead, he just moves closer—close enough that Dick can feel the literal heat radiating off him. He leans against the counter, casual and heavy, invading Dick’s personal bubble until their shoulders are inches apart.
“Cool,” Wally murmurs. “Then just hang out with me for a second. I’m wired.”
It’s a graceful out. A gift. Dick wants to deflect and he has a dozen lines ready to go, but… His feet stay planted. He lets himself lean, just a fraction, until his shoulder brushes Wally’s.
It’s an accident.
Mostly.
The contact is brief, barely there, but Dick’s chest eases a fraction, like something inside him has unclenched.
It startles him, how immediate it is. How his body reacts before his brain can throw up all the usual warnings. He tells himself it’s just familiarity. Muscle memory. Team stuff.
He doesn’t move away.
They stand there in soft almost-silence while the Tower hums around them, distant systems cycling, the world continuing on without needing anything from Dick Grayson at all.
His knee starts to bounce.
Wally’s hand drops to it without ceremony, palm warm through the thin fabric of Dick’s pants. “Hey,” he murmurs. “You’re doing that thing.”
Dick huffs a quiet laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh.” Wally’s thumb presses lightly, grounding. “You only do the jittery-bird thing when you’re about to bolt.”
Dick exhales something long and shaky before he can stop himself. The truth sits heavy behind his teeth, unfamiliar and unwelcome.
“I hate the after,” he admits, and he hates how small he sounds. “The waiting. When the adrenaline leaves and everything else finally catches up.”
Wally’s arm slides around his shoulders, easy and sure, like it’s the most natural thing in the entire wide world. Dick leans into it before his brain can argue.
“Yeah,” Wally says. “I know.”
Dick doesn’t fight it. He drops his head onto Wally’s shoulder, shuts his eyes, and finally—finally—for the first time since the mission ended, Dick lets himself stop moving.
The quiet presses in once he does.
It feels heavy at first, like stepping into deep water without knowing how far down it goes. Dick’s instinct is to tense against it, to brace for the hit—but it never quite comes.
Not the bad kind, but the kind that makes it impossible to pretend everything’s fine. Without the pacing, without the talking, without the constant hum of doing, Dick becomes acutely aware of his own body. The way his heartbeat is still trying to outrun his lungs and the way his fingers feel numb at the tips and yet tingly at the same time.
He swallows and shifts, meaning to straighten up, apologize, make a joke about personal space, but Wally’s arm tightens instead.
“Easy,” he says, low and steady, right by Dick’s ear. Dick has to fight an involuntary reaction of a very unfortunate squeak that had almost escaped him. “I’ve got you.”
Something in Dick’s chest gives at that. Something more like a release. He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and sinks more fully into Wally’s side, the tension in his shoulders melting by degrees. Wally adjusts without comment, angling his body just enough to support Dick’s weight, a hand warm and solid at his hip.
They stay like that for a while. Dick isn’t sure how long. Time gets fuzzy when he’s not tracking it on purpose.
Wally talks about nothing important. Rambling commentary about the mission, a complaint about how Barry is definitely going to steal the good leftovers, a wildly unnecessary breakdown of the physics behind one of Dick’s flips. His voice is a constant, gentle thread, something Dick can anchor himself to when his thoughts start to spiral.
“—and I’m just saying, if you’d angled your foot two degrees to the left, it would have been something genuinely majestic.” Wally finishes, his free hand up in the air and gesturing wildly, as if it would illustrate his point.
Dick snorts despite himself, the sound muffled against Wally’s shoulder. “You’re impossible.”
“Correct. Medically diagnosed.” Wally’s chest vibrates with quiet laughter. Dick can feel it against him. He’s so warm. “You with me, though?”
Dick nods, then realizes Wally can’t see it. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Still here.”
“Good.” Wally’s thumb starts tracing slow, absent circles where it rests against Dick’s side. “Just breathe, then. We’re not in a hurry.”
Which is wildly ironic, coming from him. But nonetheless, Dick does.
He matches his breaths to the rise and fall beneath his cheek. In for five. Hold. Out for seven. The world narrows down to warmth and pressure and the steady proof that he’s safe now, even if he hadn’t been a few hours ago.
The shaking doesn’t stop all at once, but it softens. The replay fades into something duller, less sharp around the edges. Dick opens his eyes eventually, blinking against the low light.
“Hey, Wally?”
“Mm?”
“Thanks.” It feels inadequate, but it’s what he has. Maybe it’s enough. “For… staying.”
Wally hums, a fond sound. “Always, man. You don’t even have to ask.”
Dick lets his eyes close again, the words settling somewhere deep and soft inside of his chest. For once, he doesn’t argue with them. He just stays. And at some point, staying turns into drifting.
It sneaks up on him, exhaustion finally cashing all the checks adrenaline wrote earlier. His thoughts lose their sharp edges, start bumping into each other lazily instead of colliding head-on.
Dick isn’t entirely sure when it happens. One minute he’s counting breaths and listening to Wally talk about something related to pizza toppings, maybe, or a very intense opinion about socks—and the next, the words start to blur together at the edges. Not gone, exactly. Just quieter. Like they’re reaching him through water.
His eyelids grow heavy, stubbornly sliding shut no matter how many times he blinks them open again. His body feels warm in a way that borders on boneless, all the sharp edges filed down until there’s nothing left to hold him upright but Wally’s arm and his own lingering sense of dutiful obligation.
“And then he has the audacity to say ‘good work’,” Wally continues, unbothered. “Which, by the way, I’m still unpacking. Might take years. Decades. Possibly a montage with Cobra Kai music.”
Dick hums, something vague and noncommittal. He’s not entirely sure what it means, but Wally seems to take it as encouragement.
“See, this is why I like talking,” Wally says. “You don’t even have to respond. You just gotta be here.”
Dick’s fingers twitch against Wally’s side, a half-asleep reflex. His forehead presses a little more firmly into Wally’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I’m… here.”
Wally’s voice drops, just a shade quieter. “Good. That’s my favorite version of you.”
Dick almost misses it.
The words drift in lazily, nearly lost under the fog of exhaustion, but something about them catches. Snags. He frowns faintly, brain scrambling to reassemble itself long enough to parse some sort meaning.
If he were a little more awake, a little more guarded, the words might have slid right past him. Filed away for later analysis. But he’s tired, and tired Dick is honest in ways awake Dick rarely allows.
“…your what?” he asks, eyes still closed.
There’s a pause. A very brief, very Wally-shaped pause that is entirely out of character.
“Uh,” Wally says. “Nothing. Just. ignore that. Speed brain. Words happen too fast.”
Dick huffs out a tired breath that might be a laugh but is just a bit too sleepy. His hand curls into the fabric at Wally’s side without asking permission. “Too late.”
Wally doesn’t pull away, but instead shifts his weight slightly, bracing himself better, like he’s fully resigned to being used as human furniture. “You falling asleep on me, Robin?”
“Maybe,” Dick admits. His voice is thick now, unguarded. “You’re… comfortable.”
“Wow,” Wally says. “High praise. Gonna put that on my résumé.”
Dick smiles, small and tired. After a second, he exhales and makes a decision.
“Couch,” he says, pushing weakly at Wally’s chest. “We’re… gonna fall.”
Wally laughs, bright and fond, and carefully disentangles them just enough to guide Dick across the room. He doesn’t let go completely—not when Dick stumbles, not when he sways, not when he very deliberately hooks his fingers into the back of Wally’s shirt like an anchor.
The couch catches them both. Dick barely registers the cushions before Wally’s arm is back around him, pulling him close without hesitation. Dick turns into it automatically, curling in, nose pressing against Wally’s collarbone.
“Hey,” Wally murmurs, softer now. “I’ve got you. Still.”
Dick’s response is immediate and honest and entirely unfiltered.
“I know.”
And he does.
Wally shifts again, slower this time, careful not to jostle him. There’s the faint rustle of fabric, the soft whoosh of air as Wally reaches out and snags a blanket from the back of the couch with impossible speed. He tucks it around them both with surprising gentleness, like he’s done this before. Like he knows exactly how Dick likes it.
For a while, neither of them says anything. Dick’s breathing evens out, heavy and warm against Wally’s chest, but he’s not fully gone. Almost, but not quite yet. He’s hovering in that pleasant in-between where everything feels distant but safe, where words still make sense if you catch them just right but could be nothing at all.
Wally clears his throat quietly.
“So,” he says, very casually, to the ceiling. He must think Dick has passed out, because he sounds less like he’s talking to Dick. “Just so you know. I, uh. I care about you. Like. A lot.”
Dick’s mouth quirks against his collarbone. He just can’t help it. “You’re really bad at subtlety,” he murmurs.
Wally freezes. “You’re awake?”
“Barely,” Dick admits. He tilts his head just enough to look up at him, pretty blue eyes half-lidded but entirely fond. “But… yeah. I know. About you caring.”
Wally’s expression softens into something unguarded, something warm and earnest. He lifts a hand to Dick’s cheek and gently presses a kiss into black hair, right at the crown of his head. It would make Dick more giddy if not for the on-the-verge-of-passing-out state he was currently in.
“Good,” he says quietly. “Then we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Dick hums, already drifting again. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
Wally settles back, content, arm tightening just a little as if to make sure Dick stays right where he is. For once, Dick lets the world keep spinning without him.
He doesn’t worry about what tomorrow will ask of him, or how he’ll explain this moment to himself later. There’s time for all of that. Right now, there’s just warmth, and Wally’s heartbeat, and the quiet certainty that he isn’t alone.
That’s enough.