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The sun was setting when Dick heard it. Or, no, not heard it. The full helmet he wore provided too good a seal for that, and even if it hadn't the rush of the wind and the motorcycle's engine would have prevented hearing much else. He must have felt it. Sometimes he still needed a little thought to get his senses sorted out since he had one or two extra now.
Then he saw it: the arc of lightning in his mirror, then beside him. Air snapped and burned and the scent of ozone made it to him even through the helmet. His heart gave a little tug, pulling at the base of his spine, dropping the bottom out of his stomach with an old, familiar impulse to go, race, chase. Dick's hand tightened on the throttle—
And he pulled to a stop at the side of the road. No more impulses for him. Not now that he could help it.
Wally skidded to a stop a few feet ahead of him, kicking up gravel in his haste to turn around.
"Aw, come on!" he said. "Since when do you turn down a race?"
Dick tugged the helmet off his head and fixed Wally with an unblinking stare in answer.
"Oh," Wally said.
Yeah, oh. Dick's stare generally had that effect on people, now, given that his eyes were solid black from lid to lid. "What do you want?" Dick asked.
"I haven't seen you since— you know. Everything," Wally said.
"And you need to see me now, why?"
"You're in a mood," Wally said. "Get over it, Grayson. I'm your best friend, right? Unless you made a better one over the past few years?"
Dick clenched his teeth so hard they squeaked. "I don't need a best friend." He jammed the helmet back on, kicked the bike back to life, and took off. Wally streaked out of the way, but he didn't try to race him again.
Instead he was waiting at the next truck stop Dick pulled into for gas.
"Are you mad at me for not saving you?" Wally asked, zipping up to him before Dick had even fully come to a stop.
"Don't kick up sparks here, genius," Dick snapped. He'd left the helmet on. It was for the best when there could be people around. It was that or sunglasses at night and Dick meant to be on his way shortly.
"Because look, none of us knew what happened. We thought you left us. And Bats—"
"What's it going to take to make you stop talking?" Dick asked. Wally grinned at him, then tilted his head toward the little diner attached to the truck stop.
"Pie?"
"I don't eat."
Wally looked well and properly horrified and Dick couldn't help a little smile – well, more a softening of his frown – at the thought that that was what it took to alarm Wally. "Can you eat?" Wally asked.
"I… I don't know," Dick admitted. He'd had liquids; Babs had brought him a water bottle after Zatanna had sealed him. He'd taken one sip then realized he wasn't thirsty. He never got thirsty. And since he never got hungry, either, he hadn't bothered to attempt food.
"We should find out."
"That's a terrible idea."
"That's what best friends are for."
Fifteen minutes later Dick had swapped the motorcycle helmet for sunglasses and he and Wally were sitting across from each other over a peeling Formica tabletop. Dick was staring down a slice of apple pie while Wally worked on his second.
"Shouldn't we start with, like, soup or something?" Dick wondered aloud.
"Where's your sense of adventure?"
"I think Klarion ate it at one point."
Wally stilled, his mouth closed around his fork. "Wait," he said around a mouthful of pie ala mode. "Was that a joke? I hate that I can't tell if that was a joke."
Dick didn't answer, but lopped off the point of the slice with his fork, closed his eyes, and put it in his mouth. It tasted…
…like slightly stale, too-sweet diner pie. He chewed, even though the apples were mushy enough that he hardly needed to, and let it slide down his throat.
"So?" Wally asked.
"It's pretty shitty pie, Walls."
"But the universe didn't explode? You don't feel like yakking?"
"Not yet," Dick said. He twitched the fork back and forth in his hand a few times. Then he took another bite.
Wally grinned and began chattering about everything in the world except pie.
"So dude, where are you going? Next town's hours away. You good for that drive? Or do you not need to sleep?"
"I need to sleep," Dick said, throwing a leg over his bike. The helmet was back in place. It was tinted. It didn't matter. Darkness wasn’t a problem. The bike shivered to life under him.
"So what are you— annnd he's gone," Wally said to Dick's receding taillight.
Of course, that didn't matter much to a Flash. Dick stopped about an hour later in, as far as Wally could tell, the exact middle of nowhere. And then he started setting up a tent.
"We're camping?" Wally said. "Awesome! Wait. Not awesome. It's winter. Hang on. Who takes a motorcycle road trip in the winter? We're nowhere near far enough south for this."
"I don't get cold," Dick said. That wasn't entirely true. He got cold, but it was a surface-level coldness. He was pretty sure it couldn't hurt him. The tent was mainly so no one tripped over him in the night, and to discourage curious animals. They typically did not like what they sensed when they were near him.
"Okay, well, I didn't bring my winter coat, so—"
"Go home, Wally."
"No, see, look, it took me a really long time to find you, even with super speed, so I think I'll stick around. Hey, is there room for two in that tent?"
"No." Dick slipped inside and zipped the flap after himself.
"Aw, come on!"
Dick lay down on his side. Wally would get cold and go home eventually. He closed his eyes, aware that Wally was still sitting right outside the tent, still talking at him, whining about being, literally, left out in the cold. But before long, Dick heard him dash away. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and drifted off.
"…figured I'd have time, you know, I mean who escapes the Batcave? No one, that's who. But next thing I know, you're gone, and the other you was gone, and Bats was doing that thing where he's pissed off but he turns into a gargoyle instead of showing it…"
Dick blinked groggily, taking a minute to orient himself as he woke up. That was Wally's voice. But Dick had been sure he'd left, and it was still dark out. Why had he come back? Just to chat Dick to insomnia?
"…kept monitoring that channel, of course. Figured if you knew I was listening, maybe you'd reach out. But I guess you had other plans. Like rescuing Jason Todd. And the new kid, rumor is he's Bats' actual son but of course no one's talking from the Cave. Not even Babs, and she's usually pretty sociable. You know she stole Robin? Like, right out from under Batman's nose, just yoink—"
"Wally," Dick groaned, fumbling at the tent flap and pulling it open. "What are you—" He blinked in the firelight. Wally had acquired a coat, hat, and mittens and was roasting a marshmallow over a small campfire. He was sitting on a squashy-looking sleeping bag and grinning at Dick.
"I got some supplies," he said.
"How long have you been out here monologuing?"
Wally shrugged. "Want a marshmallow?"
Dick shook his head. He was still sort of waiting to see if the pie would betray him in some way. He wasn't sure he still had a digestive system anymore and had no idea what might happen to food once he'd swallowed it.
"Your loss," Wally said, casually blowing out the flame that had caught on his. He was way too late; it was a charred ruin. He sighed.
"You always want to rush it," Dick said, rolling his eyes. "Give me the stick."
Wally tugged off his mittens, speared another marshmallow, and handed it over. Dick held it over the fire at just the right height, turning it slowly. Wally rolled his eyes and grabbed the spare stick he'd apparently brought along for just this purpose. He crisped four more marshmallows to inedibility before Dick handed him back the stick with a perfectly golden-brown one on the end.
"Yesssss," Wally hissed. He dug out a chocolate bar from somewhere and sandwiched the marshmallow between two halves of it. The chocolate instantly began melting and sticking to his fingers when he pressed the not-exactly-a-s'more together, but he devoured it happily all the same. "Just like old times," he said thickly.
Something caught in Dick's throat, like he was the one who'd just swallowed a molten mass of sugar. "I didn't rescue him," he said.
"What?"
"Jason. I wasn't going to— I mean, I don't know what I was going to do. But don't make me out to be some kind of hero with that. Jason rescued himself. From me."
"Dude. Harsh." Wally sucked chocolate off of his thumb loudly.
"It's the truth."
"Rumor is you went back willingly. Like the other you gave you some intel, so you escaped the Batcave to grab Jason – bonus little bat while you were at it – and then came back on your own."
Dick scoffed. "Batman's not releasing the details, huh?"
"It's Batman. What do you think?" Wally shrugged. "Fate's not a big talker either, and Zatanna says that it's not her place to share. Well, actually she said the entire Justice League is a bunch of nosy old biddies who should mind their own business. I think she might still be a little shaken up by… by whatever."
Dick hadn't missed the way Wally's eyes flicked to Dick's hands. He'd been wearing motorcycle gloves earlier. He wasn't anymore. Strange geometric shapes nestled in the hollows of his palms, plain as the black in his eyes. "She did good that night," Dick said. "No one else could have pulled it off."
"So… what did she do?"
Dick considered him. "If I tell you, are you going to tell everyone else? Artemis, the rest of the Team?"
Wally shifted uncomfortably. "Not if you tell me not to. Not even Artemis."
"No," Dick said. "You should. They should know exactly what I did."
And so Dick told him the whole story, from the beginning in Gotham and the Joker's trap, to Klarion's strange island, to the Light's lab. Wally was still as he rarely was, listening intently even to the parts Dick couldn't look at him for: the experiments, the deal he'd made, losing control so many times when all he'd been trying to gain was control. Nearly killing Jason, giving Klarion the chance to finish the job, turning around and nearly killing Tim. And all the rest.
"Feel free to speed away, now. You don't have to stay," Dick finished. His voice had stayed even throughout the telling, if flat.
Wally scooted a little closer to him. "That's a hell of a lot to go through. Especially alone."
"I should never have done it. Let Klarion turn me into… that. I should have waited. As soon as the Light tried to use me, someone would have figured it out."
"Bullshit," Wally said.
Dick brought his eyes up from the fire, which was burning low. "What?"
"I mean, if you're sorry you saved my life that's fine, I guess," Wally said. "But I'm feeling a little differently about it."
"I didn't even mean to do that. I had no idea that messing with the Reach like that would mean you lived. It was a total accident."
"Well if you're not gonna take credit for the good accidents, how can you take the blame for the bad?"
Dick squinted at him trying to work out the logic of that statement. "That's not really how it works."
"Well it should be. You saw how that other version of you reacted to seeing me." Wally buffed his nails on his chest. "I mean, I'm pretty amazing, I know. I'm willing to bet he'd consider chaos lording it up if it meant saving me. You saying he shouldn't?"
"That's— that's not even a hypothetical. That's totally beside the point."
"The point being…?"
"I messed up."
"I think there's plenty of messing up going around in this situation," Wally said. He'd gotten close enough at some point to lean over and bump his shoulder against Dick's. Dick stared down at where they'd touched.
The last time he'd been touched had been when Alfred had bid him farewell at the manor.
"I'm not… mad at you, Walls," Dick said. "What you said earlier, about not saving me?"
"I knew you were listening."
"I mean it. I'm not mad at any of them, least of all you. There was nothing you could have done."
"It's good to hear that," Wally said. "But say it to yourself, too, okay?"
Dick shrugged. "Maybe that's why I'm out here. How can I expect other people to come to terms with me – how can I believe them when they say it's okay – when I haven't figured it out myself?"
"You really think wandering all alone is the way to get there?" Wally asked, skeptical as always.
"I think it needs to be, yeah. For now. Not forever."
Wally huffed and leaned back on his hands. "Well, as long as this isn't some weird punishment journey or something." He tilted his head up, eyeing the stars. "I guess I can understand it. But hey, if you need me… you'll call, right?"
Bruce had made sure there was a cell phone in with the supplies they'd sent him off with. Dick had disabled the tracker, but he had kept it. "Yeah. You'll be the first to hear. Same goes for you though, all right?"
"Aw, you'd interrupt your solo, soul-searching brood quest for me? Thanks, buddy."
"Don't push it," Dick said.
They stayed up most of the night, conversation interrupted by stretches of comfortable silence. Dick wasn't sure he'd ever seen Wally stay put for so long, but he guessed they'd all changed over the past years. In the morning, Wally put his hand out for a handshake and ended up throwing his arms around Dick.
"I get why you're doing the loner thing, I guess," he said, backing off with just a little embarrassment over the exuberance of his hug. Dick was still reeling a little from it, standing there nonplussed. "But whenever you're through it or whatever, let me know. Doesn't just have to be in case of an emergency."
"Right. Of course," Dick said, gathering up his helmet. "And hey, sorry about trying to push you away earlier. It's… habit."
"Good thing I'm stubborn," Wally said, hands on his hips and chest stuck out.
"If I agree with that, I'll regret it, won't I?"
"I'll never let you forget it, no."
"Then I'll just say it's a good thing you're too hard-headed to realize when someone's being a jerk to you," Dick said. Wally rolled his eyes at him and Dick turned to his bike. "Oh, and Wally," he said.
"Yeah?"
"I was serious about telling the others. If they ask, don't keep it a secret. And don't leave anything out, either. They need to know what they're dealing with."
"What they're dealing with is Dick Grayson," Wally said, crossing his arms.
"Wally."
"Fine. If they ask I'll tell them what I know."
"Thanks."
"Best friend, remember?" Wally scuffed at the dirt. "All right, get going before you think of any other morbid favors to ask me. The sooner you leave the sooner you can come back, right?"
"We'll see," Dick said. "I— I'll see you later, Wally."
The bike burst to life and Dick guided it to the road, speeding off to parts unknown. Wally watched him go, restrained the urge to race after him. After all, he'd said he'd see him again, and Wally was pretty sure he meant it.