What Made Me Behave That Way?
Kiss Me Like a Final MealDisclaimer: This is a purely fan-made piece that is using the world and characters from DC Comics, particularly from various Nightwing and Flash franchises, and is made entirely for enjoyment. No financial gain has been made in the making of this piece. All other situations and plot developments are mine.
Summary: There’s an imposture in the Flash Museum who looks, talks, moves, and acts just like Dick Grayson. Takes place during the Grayson comics.
Author’s Note: Happy Birthday, Wally! Have some angst! Title from Elbow’s ‘One Day Like This’. Possible out-of-characterness and un-beta’d
Constructive criticism and comments are always welcomed.
Published: 11 November 2022
Rating: M
Wally is running around the city because he can’t sleep and he’s resisting the urge to run to Gotham. He’s pretty sure if he does, it’ll piss off Batman even more, and he might stop turning a blind eye when Wally breaks his ‘No Metas’ rule to visit Dick’s grave.
And Wally…he can’t not go to Dick’s grave. It’s the only place he gets something close to peace these days. He misses his best friend more than he can say. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever recover from the loss, and sitting at Dick’s grave and talking is the only thing that makes the ache lessen a little bit.
He’s running by the Flash Museum when he notices something off. He has to run around the building before it registers-there’s a window open and a dark thin rope disappearing inside.
Yeah, no. Not in his city and definitely not in his namesake’s museum!
Wally shoots his costume out of his ring and pulls it on before he races up the wall and slips inside. He’s not as silent as a Bat would be, but he’s pretty darn quiet as he zips around, looking for the culprit.
He spots them outside the vault where the real dangerous items are (most of the items on display are excellent replicas because some are just too risky to leave out in the open, state of the art security or not) and while Flash can’t see their face, he can see the shape of their body.
He sees red.
The Flash smashes into the guy at full speed. The guy doesn’t even get to finish his pained grunt before Flash has him pinned against the far wall. Not even a nanosecond after that, Flash’s thrown his guns away and is holding one of the guy’s electrical eskrima sticks right by his non-existent face. He presses his forearm across the guy’s throat. “I don’t know who you think you are,” he snarls, angrier than he’s ever been. “Or what you’re trying to accomplish, but you have some nerve to wear his body like that! You have five seconds to drop it, or I’m going to make you drop it!”
“Wally?”
God, he even sounds like Dick. “Four seconds,” Flash growls, ignoring the hard stone in his stomach that this worthless asshole knows his name, but proud that all his training with Batman has paid off because he has not outward reaction to his name being used. He's going to make this guy regret ever deciding to use Dick Grayson's body and voice for whatever sick caper he's up to.
"Holy restraints, Wally! Let me go, please?" Something on his face flickers, and then the weird, hypnotic swirling stops, and Dick's face comes into focus. It's even more beautiful than Flash remembered.
It makes the red haze get even stronger, and Flash presses his forearm harder against the sick bastard's throat. "Three seconds."
"Okay, so I might have a lot of explaining to do here, but I promise, KF, it's all for-"
"Two seconds."
“The first time you saw my eyes, you told me they were the same colour as electric blue cotton candy and they were even prettier than Richard Grayson’s,” the guy says in a bit of a strained rush and Flash freezes. “Then you turned red and started loudly talking about electricity and cake. The first time you met Wonder Woman, you slowed down time so you could admire her, and she caught you. The first time I brought you to the Batcave, you ran at the mouth until you realised Batman was right behind you. Then you ran around the world a ton of times before your uncle caught up to you and managed to calm you down. It still took you weeks before you stopped looking over your shoulder because you were convinced B was going to do you in.” Hesitantly, he reaches up and curls his fingers around the wrist across his throat. “You think your aunt makes the best waffles ever, but you would never say that out loud because you worry it will offend Alfred and Joan, and then they’ll never make waffles again.”
It’s a trick. Flash doesn’t know how this guy knows all this and he’ll have to figure that out, sooner versus later, but he knows it’s a trap. “Nice try,” he bites out. “You have one second.”
“Wally,” the fucking imposter says, voice aching and gentle and the most beautiful sound in the entire world, “if that doesn’t convince you I’m right here and that it’s really me, I don’t know what else I can say. I don’t want to fight you. What do you want me to do to prove I’m me?”
“There is nothing you can do because he’s dead. I watched him die.” Flash has to swallow the angry, painful lump he can feel forming in his throat. “And you think you can just waltz in wearing his face and body, you’ve got another thing coming! And your time is up.” He jams the eskrima stick forward, end glowing blue with electricity.
The imposture manages to jerk mostly out of the way, but he hisses as the electrical end still grazes and shocks him. He does something with his leg and knocks Flash back. He dances out of reach, smooth and agile. "I'm not going to fight you, Walls," he says.
"Then drop his form!" Flash lunges at him. He hates how the asshole even moves like Dick used to.
"Wally, it's me! I'm very much not dead!"
"I watched it happen!"
"It didn't stick!" The guy jumps and flips over to the rope by the window, like gravity is optional. "Lex Luthor had to stop my heart to get me out of that awful machine, but he restarted it again! If it wasn’t me, how would I know that your favourite food is not burgers, like you’re always saying in all your interviews? Burgers are your second favourite-Chocolate-frosted Sugar Bombs are your favourite food.” He ducks and twists out of the way. He then grabs the rope and shimmies up it and is out the window in a heartbeat.
Flash rockets after him. He remembers having similar chases with Robin when they were young, and it hurts so much to think about that he pushes the memories aside and focuses on stopping the damn imposter.
The whole thing is made even worse by the guy calling out random little-known facts about Wally and making terrible puns-the kind of puns that Dick loved to make-before cackling at his own wit.
Then-right at the building next to Wally’s apartment complex-the guy flings himself into the air between the two buildings. He spins-one, two, three, four times-before landing effortlessly on Wally’s balcony railing, a picture of a perfect ten.
Flash stops dead, and since he’s on a wall, he immediately starts sliding backwards. He had seen Dick do that move so many times that he didn’t know it was virtually impossible to do by pretty much everyone else. Even M’gann, with her telepathy and flying abilities, had lots of trouble replicating the move, and she couldn’t do it cold and when she was not psychically linked to Dick.
It’s a move only Dick could do.
Dick’s saying something cocky, but then his voice changes; he calls for Wally with a hint of panic and worry as he leans over the edge of Wally’s balcony, scanning the area.
Right before his butt hit the ground, Flash pulls himself together and he shoots up to his balcony, almost appearing next to Dick. Dick doesn’t start, but he does turn and relief is written all over his features. “You scared me there! Are you okay?” He reaches for the Flash, and only just manages to restrain himself from touching him.
“When’s your birthday?”
Dick blinks, but then he smiles, more radiant then all the suns in the universe combined. “The twentieth of March. ‘Swhy Dieya called me Robin. Wally, I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but I promise you, it was-umphf.” His grunt is startled when Flash launches himself at him, clinging tightly. He hesitates for only a moment, and he is pulling off Wally’s cowl and stroking his hair and back as Wally shakes through a sob. “I’m sorry, Walls, I’m so, so, so sorry. I had to do it. I can’t tell you why, but I had to do it. I’m so sorry,” he murmurs over and over again.
Wally cries harder than he did when he thought Dick was gone forever. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but he knows what he has to do. What he needs to do.
He wipes at his eyes and nose, and he steps back from the warmth of Dick’s arms. Dick looks reluctant to let go, but his hands fall to his side as Wally unlocks his door. He hovers, like he’s unsure if Wally will let him inside and Wally’s wasted enough time. He fists the front of Dick’s shirt and yanks him inside before slamming him against the wall by the door.
“Wha-” Dick starts to ask, but Wally doesn’t let him finish. He smashes their mouths together. He never kissed Dick before, and he’ll be damned if he makes that mistake again. He doesn’t care if Dick punches him after-he thought he lost Dick, and Dick owes this much for letting him mourn him for this long.
Dick goes completely still, and then he’s kissing back with an eagerness that borders on desperation. It’s not the response Wally’s expecting, but he doesn’t question it. He’s done with that.
They urgently peel off each other’s clothing and then they’re on Wally’s bed, Dick clutching Wally’s shoulders and insisting he doesn’t need another finger. Wally ignores his claims, just like he ignored the ear piece and creepy eye thing that are sitting in a cup on his bedside table where Dick threw them. They'll be time later to ask about them, just like they'll be time later to fuck Dick the way he wants to be fucked. Right now, they're going to do it Wally's way.
Dick makes the prettiest sounds as Wally fingers him, and he promises himself that later, he'll finger Dick until Dick loses his mind; he's always fantasised about doing that.
When he finally sinks inside, his entire world rearranges itself. He had imagined the moment more times than he cared to admit, but it has absolutely nothing on reality.
"I love you," he breathes as he shakes through the intense initial pleasure.
"I love you," he says as he finds the spot that makes Dick go completely wild.
"I love you," he sobs out as he tries to fuck Dick through his orgasm and Dick's perfect body keeps tightening around him as Dick coats their chests and stomachs with cum.
"I love you," he gasps as Dick doesn't let him leave and starts moving underneath him again.
"Love you," he murmurs into Dick's skin sometime later, after they’ve probably accumulated numerous noise complaints, destroyed his sheets (both sets), knocked over his coat tree and Flash standee, broken the towel rack in the shower, and put a hole in the bedroom door. "So much."
It's going to be hard, and Batman is going to be super pissed with them, but Dick is alive, and Wally can face anything with Dick. They'll make it work, and they’ll make it work well. Wally has everything he needs; Dick is alive and he is with Wally. Nothing can bring Wally down now.
Wally falls into the first peaceful sleep he's had since he thought Dick died.
xXxXxXxXxXx Wally is completely wrapped around Dick and Dick has never wanted to ignore the outside world more. He wants to follow Wally’s example and slip off into slumber. He wants to wake up and laugh as they kiss through morning breath, and he wants repeat the process until they’re that old married couple everyone holds up as an example of relationship goals.
He combs his fingers gently through Wally’s hair. If he could live in this moment forever, he would. Even now, he still feels the ghosts of Wally’s breath on his skin as Wally tells him how much he loves him, over and over again, like he has to make up for a lifetime of not saying it. As if the sex wasn’t enough to convey his feelings.
And if Dick wants to be honest, simply calling it ‘sex’ is wrong because it was more than that: It was love in its most physical form. It was passionate, it was intense, it was consuming, it was affirming. it was incredible. Dick wasn’t a blushing, awkward virgin, but this had gone far beyond anything he’d ever experienced.
And that made everything so much worse.
Dick had known he was on borrowed time when he left the Flash Museum, and he had been feeling lucky that Matron was letting it slide. But then they got to Wally’s flat…
Even with his Spyral tech on in a cup on Wally’s bedside table, it’s pretty obvious what had happened. He doesn’t want to listen Helena make comments about how he used an ‘unorthodox but effective’ method to distract the Flash. He doesn’t want to be leered at even more by Frau Netz and hear about how she’s cobbled together some sort of amateur porn video of the data she did manage to get from his tech, thus cheapening the moment. He doesn’t want to know this new information about him is going to burn through Spyral like flash paper, and everyone is going to be gossiping about it when he gets back. It’s not fair to him, but it really isn’t fair to Wally.
Dick knows what he’s doing in Spyral is important. He knows keeping his cover while he plays double agent is vital to the safety of the world-to the safety of Wally.
He knows what he has to do to complete the mission, and it’s flaying him open. Before, it had been hard and lonely, but he could tell himself it was for the greater good. Now…now he knows Wally returns his love.
It is simultaneously the most important and hardest thing Dick has ever had to do, and it has turned him into the worst person to have ever lived.
He smooths his hands over Wally’s beautiful freckled skin and he presses a salty, lingering kiss to the crown of Wally’s head.
And then he whispers “tsuchigumo.”
xXxXxXxXxXx Wally wakes up alone. He is bereft and gutted, and he doesn’t know why.
x Fin x